Description: Sometimes when you're using media, it's hard to stop. Lots of people even say they feel "addicted" to their phones or the apps and games they use. But is digital media actually designed to get you hooked? Have students think about the ways different digital media does -- and does not -- help us find healthy media balance.
Essential Question: How does digital media try to hook you, and what can you do about it?
Learning Targets
Students will be able to:
Explore ways that different digital media are, and aren't, designed to help them make good media choices.
Reflect on how digital media is designed to either help or hinder the addition of meaning and value to their lives.
Think about how to develop good, healthy habits when using digital media.
Lesson Plan: Digital Media and Your Brain
Description: Kids share a lot of information whenever they go online -- sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. But do they understand that online privacy isn't just what they say and post? Help your students learn about their digital footprints and the steps they can take to shape what others find and see about them.
Essential Question: How can you protect your privacy when you're online?
Learning Targets
Students will be able to:
Reflect on the concept of privacy, including what they feel comfortable sharing and with which people.
Analyze different ways that advertisers collect information about users to send them targeted ads.
Identify strategies for protecting their privacy, including opting out of specific features and analyzing app or website privacy policies.
Lesson Plan: Being Aware of What You Share
Description: Social media can be a place to connect, learn, and, most of all, share. But how much do kids know about what they're sharing -- and not just about themselves but each other? Help students think critically about their digital footprints on social media.
Essential Question: How does using social media affect our digital footprints?
Learning Targets
Students will be able to:
Identify reasons for using social media and the challenges that often come along with it.
Reflect on the responsibilities they have that are related to digital footprints -- both their own and others' -- when they're using social media.
Identify ways to make the most of social media while still caring for the digital footprints of themselves and others.
Lesson Plan: Social Media and Digital Footprints: Our Responsibilities
Description: Recent advancements in artificial intelligence are making chatbot technology more helpful (and clever), while at the same time, it's becoming harder to tell if we're talking to a person or a robot. In this lesson, students will explore how and why AI chatbots are designed to sound so human-like, which will help them think critically about why this can be both helpful and harmful.
Essential Question: Why are AI chatbots designed to sound so human-like, and how can that impact our everyday lives?
Learning Targets
Students will be able to:
Define what AI chatbots are and how they work.
Understand why AI chatbots are intentionally designed to sound like people.
Reflect upon the potential impacts of AI chatbots in our lives.
Lesson Plan: AI Chatbots: Who's Behind the Screen?
Description: It's natural for teens to be curious about their emerging sexuality. But most middle-schoolers aren't prepared for the risks of exploring this in the digital age. Help students think critically about self-disclosure in relationships and practice how they'd respond to a situation where sexting -- or a request for sexting -- might happen.
Essential Question: What are the risks and potential consequences of sexting?
Students will be able to:
Compare the risks and benefits of self-disclosure in relationships.
Identify the risks and potential consequences of sexting.
Practice applying strategies to respond to situations where sexting could occur.
Lesson Plan: Sexting & Relationships
Description: Kids can come across all kinds of negative content online and on social media, whether it's rude, mean, or even hateful. But what counts as actual "hate speech," and how should kids respond when they see it? Use these activities to help students identify online hate speech and discuss the best ways to respond.
Essential Question: How should you respond to online hate speech?
Learning Targets-Students will be able to:
Use a circle-discussion structure to strengthen their class community.
Explore the nature of hate speech by discussing whether it could happen at their school.
Identify specific actions to positively affect a situation involving hate speech.
Lesson Plan: Responding Online to Hate Speech
Description: With mobile phone alerts, social media updates, and 24/7 news cycles, it's hard to escape the daily flood of breaking news. But do kids really understand what they're seeing when stories first break? Help students analyze breaking news with a critical eye for false or incomplete information, and discuss the downsides of our "always-on" news media culture.
Essential Question: How should we react to breaking news?
Learning Targets-Students will be able to:
Define breaking news, and understand why individuals and news outlets want to be first to report a story.
Analyze breaking news alerts to identify clues of false or incomplete information.
Reflect on the consequences of reacting right away to breaking news alerts.
Lesson Plan: This Just In