Digital Safety Group Work

This digital safety assignment was the most useful and informative lesson I received in class.  I learned essential information on Phishing and Pharming, Textual Harassment and Sexting, Cyberbullying, Fair User Practices and Copyright Issues, and Digital Safety and Privacy.

 

According to Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, “Internet safety or online safety is the security of people and their information when using the Internet. Numerous groups, Internet sites and governments have expressed concerns over the safety of children using the Internet.”  He shares main issues concerning digital safety and provides tools on protection from becoming an online victim.  This assignment made me more aware of the dangers behind a computer and being safe should be a top priority to all Internet users.

I appreciated that instead of a class lecture, this assignment was student-centered and gave us the opportunity to learn while researching our group topics.  Allowing students to “teach” each other gives us the chance to learn effectively in a more fun and interesting environment.  My partner Chloe and I presented on the topic of Textual Harassment and Sexting.  As I conducted my research, I discovered valuable information that not only I could benefit from, but will definitely benefit my future students.  I learned it is important to be tech savvy in order to be safe while on the Internet. 

Designing a lesson for a digital safety activity for my future students would require further knowledge on all five topics.  As an educator, I would have to gather useful information to share with my students and briefly illustrate why these topics are important not only for educational purposes, but basically for life in general.  The lesson would include a group project to create a video/mini-movie on one of the topics that demonstrates valuable information that their fellow classmates could learn from.  Each student would then be required to write individual essays to reflect what they learned on their assigned digital safety topic and include what they contributed to the project. 

Although the Wiggio tool is an efficient and useful online tool, I feel that it is also necessary for students to meet face-to-face when working on group assignments.  I feel that there are some disadvantages to assigning group projects.  According to the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL), “It is difficult to accurately evaluate the contribution of individual students within group work. Valid and fair assessment of individual competence in the group setting is difficult.”  There can be a handful of students who do not contribute to group work/projects, so I would suggest including a short essay or response paper to what each student had contributed to the assignment.  Furthermore, with this group assessment paper, the teacher can give a fair and valid grade to each student.  Although there are some disadvantages to group work, I think the benefit does outweigh the disadvantages and educators simply need to be more diligent about it.  

References

Wale, Jimmy. (2011, October 20). Internet Safety. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_safety

Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. (2009). Group Assessment. Retrieved November 16, 2011 from http://ar.cetl.hku.hk/group.htm#3