Taking control of our digital lives

In a few weeks our team will be running sessions on digital citizenship with all the year 10 students. In an attempt to make sense of a very dense session I thought I’d throw it into a blog post.  I’m open to suggestions or advice if you’re kind enough to read the post. Thank you.

The leading question is:

In the digital age what are the most important skills we need to develop?

We will explore digital literacies and what it is to be a digital citizen in today’s information age. In particular, how can we take control of our digital lives?

In no set order, and depending on the dynamics of the class and their receptiveness to engage in discussion, we will look at:

  • attention (mindfulness) – thanks to the work of Howard Rheingold
  • online privacy
  • critical evaluation of information
  • your digital profile

With mobile devices and technology ubiquitous in our lives, is it possible that we are not in control of the balance in our lives?

To start discussion about whether we are online too much, I will show students this video.

I hope to talk a little on mindfulness. Mindfulness is something we can practice. It helps us have control over what we give our attention to.

We might do this one-minute meditation exercise or we might ask students to do this in their own time.

Mindfulness during study would be really appreciated by students; it’s so easy to get distracted especially with the ping of social media inviting us to take a ‘quick’ break. We will recommend to students the SelfControl app which allows them to lock themselves out of social media and email for any period of time. Sounds good to me. Students can download this app to their devices for free.

Next we’ll move on to the question: ‘Are we doing everything we can to secure our online privacy?

Then we’ll show students this video about nothing being free online and about how their online activity is stolen for the purpose of data collection.  Hopefully they’ll start to feel a little uncomfortable as they realise how little control they have over what is taken from what they do online . But will this lead to some good discussion?

At this point we’ll introduce our students to Duck Duck Go, an anonymous, encrypted search engine.  We’ll take a look at why Duck Duck Go is better for privacy than other search engines.  We’ll look more closely at how our search results are generally filtered and how we can escape our search engine’s filter bubble.

We’ll watch the following video to discover that our search results are far from objective and that the internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see.

Moving on to our digital identities, we might google each other and see what comes up. When I did this last year there wasn’t much which – as I said to the boys – is good and bad. It’s great if they don’t have inappropriate things on their public profile, but what if somebody wants to find out more about the, for example, when they apply for a job?

Here’s an revealing video about why our Facebook likes say more about us than we think, and why we should care.

At this point I’d like the students to take a look at what others see about them on Facebook by going to their public profile. Since Facebook changes privacy settings constantly and these are never simple, it should be an interesting exercise. Facebook allows a user to view their page as a person they haven’t ‘friended’ and also as a ‘friend’. Then I’ll ask the students to check out the Facebook Help Centre – I don’t think they will have looked at this in detail.

Although I’m not an advocate of the fear tactics used to scare young people off social media, I also want to make them aware of what can and does happen.  What happened to Alec Couros very recently is a sobering story. Alec Couros is Professor of educational technology & media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Someone stole his online identity and created an internet relationship scam. Read about it here in his very open blog post where he explains how scammers stole his photos to lure women into online romantic relationships to get at their money. Alec lists a long list of things he recommends to fight internet scams. He says that ‘digital literacy is necessary for determining the validity of sources, including the integrity and authenticity of our relationships.’ He recommends that ‘this needs to be a topic in school as part of a required digital citizenship curriculum’. Yes, it does. And so, our one session is not enough, but we are squeezing in at least this one session.

Alec’s final words in this second blog post are:

Likely, what I’ve learned the most throughout this predicament is that we need better systems for identity verification. I don’t actually like proposing this because I’m a strong proponent for rights to anonymity on the web. But, there must be a way to allow for anonymity and to also build mechanisms in place for identity verification where necessary. Ideas, anyone? Maybe my life’s work is in this problem somewhere.

After this frightening real story we are actually going to go back to encouraging our students to cultivate a positive online profile. I know that many of them will ask why. Why do they need to go public online? Doesn’t this go against what we’ve just been discussing – all the negative stuff? While thinking about how I could possibly make this case convincingly with something our students could identify with, I was on Twitter and had asked a question about saving archived webpages from the Wayback Machine. A few seconds later I received an answer from Nick Patsianas (@nickpatsianas) – someone I followed a while ago. He is a year 11 student who lives on the Central Coast in NSW. Nick is an inspirational young man (as you will understand when you read his blog bio) and his blog is an outstanding example of how a student can create a positive digital footprint. I will introduce Nick to my students. Nick is part of an active network on Twitter, as you can see from his Twitter conversations if you follow him.  Nick is part of Oz Minecraft Educators. If I were an employer and were looking for evidence that Nick was an intelligent, literate, responsible, engaged and thoughtful young man, I would have everything I needed in the digital footprint he has created for himself.

To finish the session (if there is time remaining), I will take my cue from Alec Couros when he says

Detection of these scams requires critical thought, a healthy skepticism, and active digital literacy.

We’re going to look at photos and text posted online and try to evaluate their validity. Hopefully this will be a fun exercise, and we might do it together. We will ask our students if the following photos are real or fake, and if the accompanying information is real of fake. We will see how well they can uncover a hoax.

After discussion, I’ll ask the boys to find out here.

What about this?

Find out here.

What about this one?

Find out here.

What about “15-ton prehistoric shark captured off coast of Pakistan”?

Find out here.

And “New York artist creates ‘art’ that is invisible and collectors are paying millions.”

Find out here.

Next we’ll have a look at some fake news websites.

In Australia:

The Shovel

World Daily News Report

See a list of international fake news sites here. 

We’ll look at some of the information taken from the article by Paul S. Piper,Librarian, Western Washington University, Better read that again: web hoaxes and misinformation. These categorise web hoaxes and misinformation, for example, parody and spoof sites, malicious sites, counterfeit, fictitious, questionable and malicious websites, and finally product sites and subject-specific misinformation.

Finally we will ask the students which of the following websites are reputable and which are not? Of those which are not, they are to specify which are counterfeit, parodies, fictitious, questionable, malicious or product sites:

I’ll leave the students with the following sites which are dedicated to tracking internet hoaxes.

Don’t Spread That Hoax

Scambusters.org

Snopes (Rumour has it)

Vmyths (Rhode Island Soft Systems produces this site designed to counter myths and hoaxes about computer viruses.

The National Fraud Center is a consumer centre for fraud, including internet fraud.

I think that ending with this lengthy activity is a safe way to approach different classes which may delve deeply into a couple of things listed here, and not complete all activities, or they might be less willing to join a discussion, in which case we will whizz through these activities.

So this lesson will be about 45 minutes long. If you are reading, please leave a comment at the end of this post. I would really appreciate it, and there is still time to edit the lesson plan.

 

 

11 thoughts on “Taking control of our digital lives”

  1. Hi Tania, There’s a lot of interested information that hopefully can stir a lot of discussion at that age. I like the ideas, the videos and the transition from one section to the other.

    Coincidentally, I just had a conversation with my niece, just turned 11, today before she went to school. I discovered that she’d done something online that, while minor in general, it told me that she thinks that because it was online it was ok. She didn’t like it and of course she kept saying no one else says anything but me, that everybody does it etc. . What I felt made more impression on her is making comparisons or drawing parallel with real , on the ground life, like things that would happen in the street, in a shop, on public transportation, at school of course and so on. Then reminded her that online you’re not dealing with a machine, but with the whole world more or less.

    🙂 Now back to your session. How many sessions are you doing this over and how long is one session?

    Perhaps if you have enough time you can start each topic/section with letting them decide on what are the rules, best behaviors, bad behaviors in regards to that topic but in an on the ground situation. then link that to the online situation may be even using questions

    e.g. how long do you think it takes for a search engines to find you once you open an account with a site like FB or Twitter?
    If there was information about you online, how do you remove it if you wanted to? How long will it take to disappear from the web so that it doesn’t come up in a search?

    It’s such an interesting topic that I am starting to think of the design myself 🙂 Apologies if my ideas look prescriptive .. I was thinking sort of aloud 🙂

    Would love to peek and see what you’re doing with it and how it goes 🙂

    1. Hi Maha, thanks for dropping by. Yes, it is interesting that your niece felt that doing something online was different to real life. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head by reminding her that she is not dealing with a machine. Even though it should be obvious it’s good to remind ourselves that the technology is another platform, and even though it’s ‘faceless’ and seems to ‘disappear’ when it gets pushed down by new posts, etc., you should be the same person wherever you are.
      Unfortunately, even though this could be a whole term unit, we are given the year 10s at the end of the year for less than 50 minutes per class at the time when they need to be kept busy. That’s not good for their focus, taking things seriously, and we have 60 boys at the one time which is difficult for discussion. But it’s the only time we’re allowed to have the boys. There is never any time for things that are not strictly curriculum. Sadly. I am still collecting everyone’s ideas because I hope that somehow we can find more time to do this properly. Thanks for all your ideas, all greatly appreciated.

  2. Tania I LOVED LOVED LOVED all the ideas in this post – some REALLY engaging stuff!!! I am not a video fan but I clicked and watched a few of these videos and they are SO well chosen!

    I love also the stories you plan to share of Nick and Alec (btw glad you were able to find stuff via Wayback Machine) and also the practical activities.

    I want to be able to share something constructive rather than just praise, but I don’t have that much!

    The only two things that came to mind are:
    1. For the “autocorrecting humanity” video (I got a love/hate reaction to that one), I thought the goldfish comment at 1:50-1:57 or so was a bit… hyped? Probably not true? Reminds me of a post by Alan Levine today about something like people decide if a website is worth look at in 50 milliseconds. Like, seriously? How do they even measure that???
    I thought it might be a good critical thinking exercise for students to question things that get said even in the videos you share with them, you know?
    2. LOVED the fake images, etc. Really truly loved it. Now, why should I trust the “hoax of fame” in the first place? It’s a tumblr page anyone could have created, right? (there is also hoaxbusters that I actually do use). But of course both of them do link to credible sources, right?

    I’d definitely recommend parts of Alan Levine’s blogpost:
    http://cogdogblog.com/2014/10/26/cliches-60000-times-faster/

    1. Thank you thank you thank you for reading and thinking and giving feedback. Love it, and that post of @cogdog’s – what a story! I may have to read it and follow links and think about it many more times.
      Yes, absolutely agree about the video, and was definitely thinking the same thing – in face all these resources (esp. videos) are meant for critical evaluation and hopefully lots of disagreement.
      I like the ‘roughly 50 milliseconds’ – or he may have used a different word to ‘roughly’. Alan Levine – what a way to pursue research. I think librarians should attack the research like he does, and it may actually interest the students. Thanks for visiting, come again soon.

  3. Tania,
    This sounds like a great unit! In case you’re interested, below is an attention mindfulness assignment I adapted from a meditation course. My students got a lot out of it. http://profrehn.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/attention-mindfulness-journal/
    They blogged about their experience. One post is here:
    https://medium.com/whittier-scholars-101/mapping-myself-online-7f75be415269 and there are others in that same collection.

    Good luck, and thanks for sharing all your great ideas!

    1. Thanks Andrea, and thanks for your links. Mindfulness is new to me, and I appreciate your resources. Your student has learned a lot about mindfulness online. A great example to others. Thanks for dropping by. 🙂

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