Digital+Etiquette

=Digital Etiquette= Ali and Vishnu toc 1) We intend to teach a 6th grade class as they need to know about the proper etiquette of internet use. As they are young, they need to know the standards of conduct expected from internet users. 2) There is no need to use this for Community and Service =Investigate=

The point of this investigation is basically to assist younger students to become better users. This is why our lesson is directed at Grade 6 students. The justification for this is that as they are now in secondary school, they will become increased internet users. The constant argument involving digital etiquette is the appropriateness and inappropriateness of an electronic act. Our task will be trying to help the students between these two opposite acts. As we have discussed the matter with Ms. Lindsay, we as a group have decided that we will present our lessons during one of the Grade 6 IT lessons, one of her classes. We are preparing to go with a mixture of visual and text based presentation. This way, it will be quite interesting to a younger audience. This lesson is not only applicable to an IT class but rather to any class that uses the Internet, which broadens the spectrum somewhat. As mentioned earlier, this project is a curricular act of community and service but we have not considered it so far as the actual lesson has not taken place. This investigation includes the important areas that we have covered so far and we have already started planning the design stage of this first unit. =Design=

The investigation part of this unit is now complete for our group, made up of Ali and I, and the next stage is the design of our final lesson. So far, we have finalized one artifact and are planning two more. The artifact we are definitely utilizing from the cyber bullying wikispaces page. It is a survey, called the ‘Are you a cyber bully’ that reveals your standards as an internet user. We are also planning a short powerpoint presentation about design etiquette, specifically focusing on cyber bullying. As well as this is as an interactive group activity. This activity will involve student participation as they will use their knowledge obtained from our lesson to create a skit about the prevention of cyber bullying. The reason for our visual oriented lesson is so that the Grade 6 students will be kept entertained and it will hold their focus. Our language will be suited to Grade 6 vocabulary and not be loaded with specific terminology but a more simplified version. The main message we are trying to convey is not to scare them off the internet but rather educate them about a specific conduct, cyber bullying, and prevent it from occurring. We want to spread the message of proper electronic conduct as the senior school has high standards of digital conduct and we want to make sure that they stay trouble free right from the start. This will ensure that they know the ropes about being a good student of the senior school.

=Create=

These were the different components of our final lesson as well as the report from Ms. Lindsay about our lesoon. A [|powerpoint presentation] about digital etiquette:

Videos from this site

A survey about proper digital etiquette adapted from the very same site.

Lesson evaluation from Mrs Lindsay

Vishnu 's [|Blogs:]

=Evaluate=

//Ali Al-Ani// During the preperation of the presentation, I think our research was just based on finding main information about Digital Etiquette that people would want to know, nothing too specific. For the research, I researched on examples and ways to act while using technology, such as the internet. During the presentation we did ver well. We were organized and prepared, except for the pens. We rushed, though. The students seemed to like the survey, and they took the advise shown on the slideshow we showed. Overall, i think we were successful.

//Vishnu Ramakrishnan// The unit is practically over now that the lesson has been presented. However, there still remains the evaluation for the different stages of the whole unit. There were many positives to this unit and the overall lesson could be considered a very good achievement. However, as with every project, there are improvements that could have done and some problems along the way. Throughout the different stages of this unit, there have been many pros and cons that have surfaced along the way. The start of this unit was a rather different approach to an IT unit. The first unit was supposed to be citizen journalism, but it became apparent that the unit would be too time consuming and too complicated. So, there was a unit switch to digital citizenship, which also seemed like a lot of work and finally resulted in a lesson to another class, which seemed tough. The early stages were rather easy, inestigating and finding out what digital citizenship was and what it incorporated. The first problem surfaced when we had to choose our specific topic. Digital etiquette, the topic we ended up with, was not even our third choice as we had other ideas. However, in the end we realised that it was not a very difficult topic and that it could be managed. Before we begun the stages of the digital etiquette, we had to choose to have this as a curricular project for Community and Service. It would involve more work and the presentation of our lesson to a wider range of viewers. This is why I did not consider this as a curricular project. In the end, it proved to be a good decision as the amount of work needed for the unit was quite a lot, and it would have affected the quality of our final product if we were doing it for a Community and Service project at the same time. The investigation stage was rather simple for this unit and there were no major problems in completing this stage. All it involved was picking our partner and topic of choice and then choosing a class to present our lesson to. The design stage took some time to complete. It involved choosing the artifacts that we were going to present in our lessons and the actual process of presenting the lessons. Choosing the artifacts was a problem as we could not decide on our final three. At first, our choice was a homemade video, a survey and a skit on digital etiquette. Then, we realised making our own video would take up time we did not have. So, instead of making a video, we decided to utilise the simplest videos from the cyberbullying wikispaces page. The video was created by Parry Aftab. Then, instead of the skit, we decided to create a Powerpoint presentation loaded with visuals as it would be more likely to hold the young student's attention. Our final artifacts that we used in the lesson were the Powerpoint presentation, the video about cyberbullying and the survey, which was the only artifact we maintained from the start. The final lesson was an interesting experience for my partner and I, neither having done something like this. This explained our nervousness at the start, which resulted in a careless mistake. We forgot to supply them with pencils to answer our survey. Instead, they had to go and get their own writing equipment. Following the lesson report that Ms. Lindsay provided us, our lesson had its pros and cons. We seemed to lack confidence, but we improved as the lesson went on. Our lesson was also slightly short of the mark, instead of 30 minutes, it was 25. However, the postives were that our powerpoint was informative, the students seemed to enjoy the survey and the video we showed was relevant and easy to understand. Overall, the lesson went rather well. The result was better than my partner and I expected. This unit was not only informative to the Grade 6 students we presented to, but to us as well. I did not know half the things about digital etiquette at the start of this unit. Now, I think that I too have become a slightly better Internet user. = = =Cited work= __Slideshare.net__. 8 Feb. 2008 <[|http://www.slideshare.net/secret/aeApDR6KqnK9V4>.]

Lindsay, Julie. "Cyberbullying." __Wikispaces__. 14 Feb. 2008 .

"Stop Cyberbullying." __WiredKids.inc__. 14 Feb. 2008 <[|http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/tweens/are_you_a_cyberbully.html>.]

"Vishnu Blog." __Eduspaces__. 2 Feb. 2008. 14 Feb. 2008 <[|http://eduspaces.net/11vr/weblog>.]

Final assessment Ali - Vishnu -