Rules of the Game
In this lesson, students consider the importance of the written and unwritten rules that make it possible to learn and play together, online and offline.
That's Not Cool: Healthy and Respectful Relationships Online
In this lesson, students begin by considering one of five scenarios that illustrate unhealthy relationship behaviours relating to digital media: pressuring others to share private content, cyberstalking, harassment and abuse of trust. Students then relate the scenarios to their own experience by brainstorming other examples of these behaviours and voting on which they feel are most relevant to their lives. The teacher then leads a guided discussion on the reasons why unhealthy behaviours may be more common when we communicate through digital media and ways in which they can be avoided or mitigated. Finally, students act out their own scenario in which they portray young people successfully dealing with one of the unhealthy relationship behaviours.
Taming the Wild Wiki - Lesson
Students are introduced to Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, and given an overview of its strengths and weaknesses as a research source.
Can You Spot the Ad?
In this lesson, students will learn about the concept of branded content and will learn to differentiate between branded images and videos and non-branded images and videos in online and offline contexts through a series of questions and discussions.
Promoting Ethical Online Behaviours with Your Kids
Most kids live as much of their lives online as they do offline. But on the Internet there are lots of moral and ethical choices that don’t have to be made offline. These tips lay out ways you can help your children develop a moral compass to guide them through those choices.
Responses and Solutions in the Classroom
There are two main strategies for addressing online hate and cultures of hatred in the classroom: teaching youth to recognize and deconstruct it, and empowering them to intervene by answering back to it.
Experts or Amateurs? Gauging Young Canadians’ Digital Literacy Skills: How Canadian Youth Use, Understand and Create Digital Med
It’s been almost fifteen years since Mark Prensky coined the term “digital native” to describe young people who have grown up with the Internet and digital media. In fact, the children who were born the year Prensky’s book was published are now in high school. While for many, the public perception of young people taking to digital platforms like ducks to water persists – accompanied by the image of adults, particularly parents, who are seen (often by themselves) as hopelessly out of their depth – the question remains how close that image is to reality. Are Canadian youth truly digitally literate? And if they are not "digital natives" who effortlessly acquire their skills on their own or from peers, are students learning what they need from their parents or teachers?
Helping kids authenticate information online
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
How Parents Can Promote Ethical Online Behaviours with Kids
We generally think of our kids’ online and offline lives as being two separate things. In reality, they constantly overlap, flowing back and forth face-to-face in the schoolyard and through texts and social networks at home. But on the Internet there are lots of moral and ethical choices that don’t have to be made offline.
How to discourage plagiarism
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s not only struggling students who plagiarize: indeed, it may be students who are under pressure to achieve who are more likely to engage in the subtler (and harder to detect) forms of plagiarism1. Researchers have identified three situations where this is most likely: when students are under pressure (such as when work must be done with a tight deadline, or a work is particularly important for their grades); when students are not interested in the work; and when students feel that the assignment is unfair to the point where they have no hope of success without cheating2.