Description: Most of us use a lot of digital media in our daily lives -- even when we don't realize it! Having a balance between online and offline time is important, but healthy media balance might look different for everyone. Help students create a personalized plan for healthy media use.
Essential Question: What is your strategy for finding media balance?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Make an inventory of their media choices and how those choices make them feel.
Brainstorm personal strategies for balancing media use.
Create personal guidelines for promoting healthy media balance.
Lesson Plan: A Personal Challenge
Description: Every time we go online, we're giving away information about ourselves. But just how much data are companies collecting from us? Hint: It's probably a lot more than we realize. Show your students these three tips on how to limit the data that companies collect.
Essential Question: How do companies collect and use data about you?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Explain why information about them and their behaviors is valuable to companies.
Analyze how certain types of data are used by companies.
Learn three strategies to limit individual data collection by companies.
Lesson Plan: Big, Big Data
Description: What others find about us online shapes who they think we are and how they feel about us. But do kids know what kinds of tracks they've already left? Help your students learn about their digital footprints and the steps they can take in the future to shape what others find and see about them online.
Essential Question: What is a digital footprint, and what does yours convey?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Define the term "digital footprint" and explain how it can affect their online privacy.
Analyze how different parts of their digital footprints can lead others to draw conclusions -- both positive and negative -- about who they are.
Reflect on what they want their digital footprints to be in the future and how they can monitor and shape them.
Lesson Plan: The Power of Digital Footprints
Description: Artificial Intelligence is often trained on data we share online. Students will become more critical and responsible users of this technology by gaining a deeper understanding of how AI uses data to learn and create.
Essential Question: How is AI trained? How does data determine what artificial intelligence can do?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Understand that data is a building block of artificial intelligence.
Identify what AI can do based on the data it is trained on.
Lesson Plan: How is AI Trained?
Description: For most middle-schoolers, being on social media can mean connecting with friends, sharing pictures, and keeping up to date. But it can also mean big-time distractions, social pressures, and more. Help students navigate the different feelings they may already be experiencing on social media.
Essential Question: How does social media affect our relationships?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Identify the role of social media in students' lives.
Reflect on the positive and negative effects of using social media on their relationships.
Recognize "red flag feelings" when using social media, and consider ways to handle them.
Lesson Plan: My Social Media Life
Description: When cyberbullying happens, everyone involved brings their own perspective to the situation. Help students learn about the importance of empathy, how to consider others' feelings, and how to be an upstander when cyberbullying occurs.
Essential Question: How can you respond when cyberbullying occurs?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Consider the different perspectives of those involved in a cyberbullying incident.
Identify ways to be an upstander or ally to someone being bullied.
Problem-solve potential challenges to responding to cyberbullying.
Lesson Plan: Upstanders and Allies: Taking Action Against Cyberbullying
Description: Kids can be voracious consumers -- and creators -- of media, and it's easier than ever for them to find and share digital content online. But do middle-schoolers know about concepts like fair use, copyright, and public domain? Give students a framework they can use to better understand how fair use works in the real world.
Essential Question: What rights to fair use do you have as a creator?
Learning Targets: Students will be able to:
Define the terms "copyright," "public domain," and "fair use."
Identify the purpose of the Four Factors of Fair Use.
Apply fair use to real-world examples, making a case for or against.
Lesson Plan: The Four Factors of Fair Use