How to Teach 3rd Graders About Digital Citizenship

Big Idea

It is important to be a good digital citizen

Time Required

8 lessons, 45 minutes per lesson

Essential Questions

• What should you do if you meet a cyberbully?
• How is ‘netiquette’ the same/different than etiquette?
• Why is it wrong to ‘plagiarize’ intellectual property?
• Why is an avatar a good idea?
• Is the internet a safe neighborhood?

Assessment Strategies

• Observation—students use the skills learned
• Completion of projects
• Transfer—evidence of student learning in classes/life
• Emailed quiz
• Track topics covered with graphic organizer at the end of 6-8^th Grade unit
  • Receipt of certificate in Welcome to the Web unit
  • Option: certificate in Common Sense’s Digital Passport  covering:
    • Multi-tasking with cell phones is a bad idea
    • Online messaging?
    • Cyberbullying
    • Effective searches
    • Digital laws with personal creative pieces.
• Option: Play Carnegie Cadets covering the internet, email, cyber threats, cybercrimes, chat rooms, instant messaging, netiquette, cyberbullying, online data, searching the internet, copyrights/plagiarism, cell phones, and online reputation.

More Information:

How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 3rd Grade

How can I teach my students about digital citizenship

Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they complete their research on projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with wealth comes responsibility. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. There are several great programs available to guide students through this process (Common Sense’s Digital Passport, Carnegie CyberAcademy, Netsmart Kids). I’ve collected them as resources and developed a path to follow that includes the best of everything.

Here’s Third Grade:

Overview/Big Ideas

Why is it important to be a good digital citizen? How can students do this?

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• What are my rights and responsibilities as Digital Citizens?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

When is Typing Faster Than Handwriting?

Most elementary-age students struggle with typing. This doesn’t surprise me. They’ve been handwriting since kindergarten. They’re proud of their new cursive skills. It’s easy to grab and pencil and write. Typing, though requires setting up their posture, hand position, trying to remember where all those pesky keys are (why aren’t they just alphabetized? It’s a good point. Discuss that with students).

In third grade, I gather the students and we chat about it. Why do they have to learn to keyboard? It’s more than a skill they trot out for the keyboarding software and then forget. Discuss the idea of sharing ideas–the Gutenberg Press, when writing began with scrolls and rocks, why was it important to save ideas in perpetuity? Why is it important to students?

The discussion should come around to the idea that putting ideas in some sort of permanent fashion is important to the history of mankind. The question is how, and the ‘how’ that’s relevant to the students is a comparison of handwriting and keyboarding. Here’s where we go from there:

Circle back on science in technology

• Discuss whether students handwrite faster/slower than they type. Ask students to share thoughts on why their opinion is true. You are likely to get opinions on both sides of this discussion. If not, prod students with logic for both.
• When it’s clear the class is divided on this subject (or not–that’s fine too), suggest running an experiment to see which is faster—handwriting or typing.
• Circle back to science class and engage in a discussion on the Scientific Method. Develop a hypothesis for this class research, something like: Third grade students in Mr. X’s class can handwrite faster than they type (this is the most common opinion in my classes).
• Have students hand-copy the typing quiz they took earlier in the trimester for 3 minutes.
• Analyze the results: Compare their handwriting speed to their typing speed. I encourage an individual comparison as well as a class average comparison to help with understanding the conclusion.
• Discuss results: Why do students think some students typed faster and others typed slower?  (In my classes, third graders typed approx. 10 wpm and handwrote approx. 15 wpm. Discussion was heated and enthusiastic on reasons. Especially valuable were the thoughts of those rare students who typed faster).
• Students will offer lots of reasons for slower typing (they’re new to typing, don’t do it much in class, their hands got off on the keyboard). In truth, the logistics of typing make it the hands-down winner once key placement is secured. Fingers on a keyboard are significantly faster than the moving pencil.
• One reason students suggest is that they don’t usually type from copy. Key in on this reason (quite valid, I think—don’t you?) and revise the experiment to have students type and handwrite from a prompt.
• What is the final conclusion?
• If possible, share results from 4-8^th. What grade level do students consistently type faster than they handwrite? Why? Are students surprised by the answer?
• Post a list on the wall of students who type faster than they handwrite. This surprises everyone.

Book Review: 55 Tech Projects for the Digital Classroom

With the school year almost back, I want to share some of the tech books I use in my classroom. I think you’ll enjoy them also. This one is a two-volume all-in-one for grades K-8. It includes a mixture of lessons that cover different skills, different subjects. Hope you like it!

55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom: Everything you need to integrate computers into K-8 classes

by Jacqui Murray

Volume I is 219 pages and Volume II 235 pages, making this series an all-in-one K-8 toolkit for the lab specialist, classroom teacher and homeschooler, with a years-worth of simple-to-follow projects for K-8. Integrate technology into language arts, geography, history, problem solving, research skills, and science lesson plans and units of inquiry using teacher resources that meet NETS-S national guidelines and many state standards. The fifty-five projects are categorized by subject, program (software), and skill (grade) level. Each project includes standards met in three areas (higher-order thinking, technology-specific, and NETS-S), software required, time involved, suggested experience level, subject area supported, tech jargon, step-by-step lessons, extensions for deeper exploration, troubleshooting tips and project examples including reproducibles. Tech programs used are KidPix, all MS productivity software, Google Earth, typing software and online sites, email, Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, internet start pages, social bookmarking and photo storage), Photoshop and Celestia. Also included is an Appendix of over 200 age-appropriate child-friendly websites. Skills taught include collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, creativity, digital citizenship, information fluency, presentation, and technology concepts. In short, it’s everything you’d need to successfully integrate technology into the twenty-first century classroom.

If you send a proof of purchase for the print textbook to the publisher at sales@structuredlearning.net, you can buy a discounted pdf of the book here.

Book Review: Fourth Grade Technology Textbook

Fourth Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every Fourth  Grader Can Accomplish on a Computer

by Structured Learning IT Teaching Team

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m often asked what books I’d recommend for teaching technology in the classroom. Each year about this time, I do a series of reviews on my favorite tech ed books. If you’re already looking ahead to next year’s technology curriculum and want to fix some of this year’s problems, I suggest you consider the seven-volume K-6 technology curriculum series that’s used in hundreds of school districts across the country (and a few internationally). It’s skills-based, project-based, aligned with NETS national standards and fully integratable into state core classroom standards.

The fifth in the series, the 127-page Fourth Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Any Fourth Grader Can Do (Structured Learning 2011), updated to MS Office 2007/10, available in print or digital, and perfect for Smartscreens, iPads, laptops. It includes many age-appropriate samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections, thematic websites, and how-to’s. Because I edited this book, I made sure it includes pieces that I as a teacher knew to be critical to the classroom:

• PDF version is in full color
• PDF version has active links so you can click through to enrichments when required for student-centered learning
• each lesson summarizes a 45-minute class period–usually 2-3 activities, arranged temporally throughout the year for ease of understanding by students. For example, a lesson is likely to include 2-3 activities from among typing practice, student presentations, project that ties into core class activity, problem-solving that assists with 1:1 initiatives
• each lesson is aligned with NETS standards
• each lesson includes required vocabulary
• each lesson provides integrations to core classroom units and topics
• each lesson includes trouble-shooting solutions to the problems most likely to come up in the classroom
• each lesson includes enrichments for those precocious students who finish the lesson and want more
• includes a list of websites (PDF has active links, print version goes to Ask a Tech Teacher Great Websites). Both print and PDF can access a webpage on Ask a Tech Teacher that is updated yearly with new websites by grade level and category
• there’s a help link (to this blog) to a teacher using the curriculum who will help you through the prickly parts of a lesson plan. This is FREE–no charge.
• Where lessons center around purchased software, the authors made an effort to offer free alternatives. For example, instead of KidPix, teachers can use TuxPaint. Instead of Type to Learn, teachers can use a list of online keyboarding websites like Dance Mat Typing and Typing Web
• If you buy the print book, the PDF is discounted
• includes pedagogy articles to help think through critical issues like keyboarding, use of the internet, how to use wikis in classrooms, and more
• includes wall posters covering critical technology issues (like mouse skills)

Weekend Website #93: 18 Natural Disasters Websites

Natural disasters

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my

parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

My fourth graders just went through a unit of inquiry on natural disasters and we came up with a pretty good list of resources. I want to share them with you. Please add your own to the comment section:

1. Avalanches
2. Earthquake simulations
3. Earthquakes
4. Earthquakes for Kids
5. Earthquakes–USGS
6. Hurricanes
7. Natural disaster videos
8. Natural disasters—National Geographic
9. Natural disasters–resources
10. Savage Earth
11. Storm Chasing
12. Tornadoes
13. Tornadoes II
14. Tsunamis
15. Volcano Adventure
16. Volcano Underwater
17. Volcano videos
18. Volcanoes

Weekend Website #92: 43 Language Arts Websites for 3rd Grade

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Here’s a long list of Language Arts and Word Study websites for 3rd grade. I’m sure they’re fine for 4th and 5th, also. You decide, depending upon what your students are working on.

1. BBC Phonics
2. BiteSize—Reading, Writing, Grammar
3. Blends
4. Common/Proper Noun Basketball
5. Contraction Games
6. Contraction Crossword
7. Contraction Practice
8. Create a picture with words
9. Feast of Homonyms
10. Flamingo Suffixes
11. Funny Poetry
12. Glossary of Poetry Terms
13. Grammar Gorillas
14. Grammaropolis
15. Instant Poetry—fill in the blanks
16. Jelly Fish
17. Katie’s Clubhouse
18. Opposites Train Game
19. Parts of speech poetry
20. The Patchworker
21. Pick a Word
22. Plural Nouns
23. Poetry with a Porpoise
24. Poetry Engine
25. Prefix Catch
26. Prefix Match
27. Prefix Suffix Balloon Game
28. Punctuation and Capitalization
29. Punctuation Games
30. Sam’s Lab
31. Shaped Poems–fun
32. Short Vowels
33. Suffix Match
34. Synonym or Antonym?
35. Third Grade Poems
36. Vocabulary Flood
37. Vocabulary Pinball
38. Web-based Mad Libs
39. Word Balloons
40. Word Family Sort
41. Word Magnets
42. Word Play
43. Word Pond

Monday Freebies #38: Introduction to Google Earth

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Intro to Google Earth

Google Earth can be used for so many classroom activities. It is a favorite of even my kindergartners. I start by showing them how to pan in and out, drag to move the globe, change the perspective of the earth’s surface, use the built in tour or one I add on Calif. Missions or the solar system. I have fifth graders create a tour that the youngers then watch as a tie in.  I also let them type in their address and visit their home, including street view.

Monday Freebies #37: Use Oregon Trail to Teach Westward Expansion

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Oregon Trail to Teach Problem Solving Skills

Show students how to get the most out of Oregon trail by reading the headings on each screen, thinking about problem solving skills and applying the simulation to their classroom discussion on westward expansion. I include a worksheet of questions they can answer as well as additional websites to extend their education.

Monday Freebie: #33: Grow Your Story

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Grow Your Story

Use a first-grade or second-grade story. Show students how to add description to it, setting details, sensory details, characterization, so it sounds more mature and interesting. I use thought bubbles to make it more fun.

Click on them for a full size alternative.

Weekend Website #68: Live Like Bear Grylls

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

What would Bear do?

Weekend Website #66: What’s Your Carbon Footprint

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #67: 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Age:

3rd grade

Topic:

Landforms

Review:

If your third grader has to write a report about landforms, try these websites:

1. About Rivers www.42explore.com/rivers.htm
2. Biomes/Habitats http://www.allaboutnature.com/biomes/
3. Deserts http://www.42explore.com/deserts.htm
4. Explore the Colorado http://www.desertusa.com/colorado/explorriver/du_explorrv.html

23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5

Summer is when parents worry about math facts and the automaticity of math skills. The following websites focus solely on that facet of math.

I’ve broken them down by grade level, but you can decide if your second graders are precocious enough to try the websites for grades 3-5:

K

• K Math Skills
• Math Videos (not practice, but fun to watch)
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

1^st

• First Grade math skills
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

2^nd

• Math Flashcards
• Math Practice Test
• Mental Math
• Mental Math Drills
• Minute Math
• More Quick Math
• Multiplication Tables
• Quick Math
• Quick Math II
• Quick Math—by level

Weekend Websites #56: 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5

This is the time of year when teachers worry about math facts and the automaticity of math skills. The following websites focus solely on that facet of math.

I’ve broken them down by grade level, but you can decide if your second graders are precocious enough to try the websites for grades 3-5:

K

• K Math Skills
• Math Videos (not practice, but fun to watch)
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

1^st

• First Grade math skills
• Money flashcards
• Numbers

2^nd

• Math Flashcards
• Math Practice Test
• Mental Math
• Mental Math Drills
• Minute Math
• More Quick Math
• Multiplication Tables

20 Common Computer Problems and Solutions (a Third Grader Can Do)

I received a lot of requests for copies of a document I published a year ago, Troubleshooting Common Computer Problems. At the suggestion of Edtech Sandy (aka Sandy Kendell), I tried to upload it through Google Docs to no avail (though it kind of worked in my WordPress.org site) so I’m guessing WordPress.com doesn’t allow Google Docs. Please feel free to disabuse me of that conclusion.

I uploaded instead through my Scribd account. Here is the original document and a different way of displaying the same problems (viewed best in FireFox):

Weekend Website #54: 20 Great Research Websites for Kids

Here are quick, safe spots to send your students for research:

1. All-around research site libraryspot.com
2. Dictionary www.dictionary.com
3. Edutainment site—requires subscription www.brainpop.com/
4. General info research www.infoplease.com/yearbyyear.html
5. Internet research sites for kids http://ivyjoy.com/rayne/kidssearch.html
6. Kids search engine for the internet kids.yahoo.com

#30: A Cover Page in Publisher

Use the Quick Publication template to make a fast cover page for a report, project, etc, in the classroom. Pay attention to layout, grammar, spelling, design.

computer lesson plan

How to Teach Keyboarding in Lower School

I get more questions on teaching keyboarding than any other topic. I’ve posted many columns on it…

Tech class keyboarding

• 20 Best Keyboarding Websites
  
• Keyboarding Starts Here
• Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See
• #102: 23 Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts
• 5 Best Online Keyboarding Programs
• 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs for K, 1
• Yes, You Should Assign Keyboarding Homework

…but I thought I’d summarize for you how I do it and then get your routine.

Weekend Website #46: Computer Lab Favorites

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Pick activities by grade level, subject

#48: Sponge Activities for Geography

Introduce students to web-based geography activities that can be done in five or ten minutes between lessons, before lunch, in free time. I include five in this lesson.

Geography sponges for extra classroom time

#41: Where is That?

Locate the major latitudes and longitudes on Google Earth. Locate cities, countries along the same latitude/longitude. Zoom in to see how exact lats and longs get. Students also find their own house by lat and long. I also give students a lat and long and see if they can figure out where it is on the globe.

#30: A Cover Page in Publisher

Use the Quick Publication template to make a fast cover page for a report, project, etc, in the classroom. Pay attention to layout, grammar, spelling, design

Magazine in Publisher

Tech Tip #56: Force a New Page

Tech tips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Weekend Website #42: Yuckiest Site on the Internet

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Yucky stuff your body does

#35: Sponge Activities for Vocabulary Building

There are lots of great online vocabulary websites to help kids learn high-frequency and dolch words. I’ll share five of them. Maybe you have some to share with the group.

Weekend Website #33: Wild on Math

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

#39: Google Earth Board

I had a reader ask about this, so I’m posting this wonderfully fun lesson.

Students select from a list of Wonders of the World (or locations put together in conjunction with the classroom teacher). They do brief research on it, locate it using Google Earth and make a short presentation to the class about it.

Click on them for a full size alternative.

#80: Study Better Together With Excel

This is a summative lesson in Excel. Be sure to finish Excel for beginners before attempting this one.

If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative.

#79: Excel Turns Data Into Information

Sometimes, it takes a picture to really show what you’re trying to say. It doesn’t have to be drawn with pencils or paint brushes. Sometimes, it’s a graph or a chart, formatted to clarify important points.

That’s called Excel. Words and numbers are always black and white and the same size. Excel never is. There are twenty-two Excel skills I teach grades 3-5 that turn Excel into a useful tool in their classroom. This covers the first fourteen.

Where Would You Like to Go Today?

Are you here for a lesson plan… Tech tips… Humor? Click the category on the sidebar and you’re there.

I notice lots of readers are clicking on the pictures, hoping it’s a link to a category. I have to confess: I was unable to get the pictures to act as links. I don’t think WordPress can do that. I spent quite a while trying. I can do it if I put each picture in separately (rather than as a two-column album), but it’s difficult to maneuver. Until I solve that you’ll have to visit the Categories section on the sidebar. You’ll get a group of projects on that topic, mixed ages:

Tech Tips

KidPix Projects

Google Earth Projects

Photoshop Projects

Keyboarding Projects

MS Word Projects

Publisher Projects

PowerPoint Projects

Excel Projects

Computer Humor

Tech Tips

Anyone know how to make the pictures in a picture gallery act as links? Hmmm….

#73: How to Graph in Excel

Excel graphs are easy enough for third graders. So try it. Collect your data, enter it into an excel worksheet and push F11. If you have more time, show students how to format the graph. This is a favorite with my third graders.

18 Great Poetry Websites

UPDATE–3 of these sites disappeared. I’ve deleted them. Now there are 15 Great Poetry Websites…

My fourth grade students are working on poetry for a few weeks and I have discovered some truly wonderful, fun-filled websites. Here’s my list, each one tested and approved by 75 fourth graders. Just click the picture to go to the website:

Tech Tip #15: Save Early Save Often

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

#109: MS Word Skills Assessment for Grades 3-8

This assessment is comprehensive, designed not to test students. but assess their knowledge as an aid to you in determining where to begin. Use it when you start a new class or to determine where are the holes in their learning.

#110: Publisher Skills Assessment for Grades 3-8

This assessment is comprehensive, designed not to test students. but assess their knowledge as an aid to you in determining where to begin. Use it when you start a new class or to determine where are the holes in their learning.

#74: Mastering Excel (for Beginners)

There are 22 common Excel skills easy enough for fourth and fifth graders. When they’re done, they–and their parents (and you, by the way)–will feel that they’ve accomplished much more.

#102: 23 Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

Nothing makes computer work faster than keybaord shortcuts. And, it is the rare student who doesn’t claim them as their own and pass on to friends their favorites.

Tech Tip #7: Transparent Backgrounds

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

#100: How to Web 2.0 Accessorize Your Classroom

Web 2.0 is the most exciting thing to happen to education since the schoolhouse. It is a limitless classroom, allowing students access to anything they can define. Includes what’s a digital citizen, how to create a blog, a classroom internet start page, a classroom wiki, how to join social networks and post pictures on Flikr, where to go for podcasting and online docs, and more.

Here’s where you start: