Friday, October 19, 2012

Internet Safety and Cyberbullying


As we all know, internet predators and cyberbullying has been becoming more common as more people access the internet and as it becomes more advanced. It's scary, and my students have told me frightening stories over the past few years of things that have happened to them personally. Our school invites local law enforcement to come talk to our intermediate kiddos, but now our district also requires teachers to teach a lesson on internet safety and cyberbullying at all grade levels and they provided us with a lesson from NetSmartz. There was a video to watch and then a game to play afterwards. The video was slightly "babyish" for 5th graders, but they didn't seem to ming. Our class went through the lesson today and I/they would have loved to have discussed internet safety and cyberbullying more, but it was time to clean up for the week.

We used the NetSmartz lesson and it was simple yet meaningful. This site is full of great, FREE, resources and videos for kids of all ages as well as for parents (although it isn't too user friendly). You can use the pull down search to locate resources on other topics.

Included in the lesson was a safety pledge that included four rules to follow. The video goes over these and the game includes situations in which students decide which rule(s) apply. Then they take the pledge home and sign it with their parents.



I highly recommend checking it out and teaching your students about internet safety!


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