Digital citizenship is a topic that is essential for all students. Our goal this year at USD is to become a Common Sense Media school district. In order to do that we, the Tech ToSAs, are working hard to create ready-to-go digital citizenship lessons at every grade level. You can already find some of those on our USD Learns website.
It is especially important for our 6th grade students who have access to the USD issued Chromebooks 24/7 to be responsible digital citizens. Common Sense Media has a lot of great digital citizenship curriculum for all grade levels, but there is one brand new resource for middle school students that was just released this year. Digital Compass is a choose-your-own-adventure game that gives students the responsibility to make tough digital citizenship life choices in a fun, safe way. There are 9 possible endings to this game and it's all based on the 50 combinations of paths and decisions that students make along the way. The better their choices and the more lessons they learn, the more points and better badges they earn.
It's been so exciting walking through the Union and Dartmouth Middle School campuses and watching the 6th grade students and teachers embrace the new take-home Chromebook program. I have to give a HUGE kudos to all of the 6th grade teachers and everyone who put time and effort into planning and executing the rollout of the Chromebooks. It was definitely not an easy task, and it will be interesting to collect and analyze data throughout this school year.
Here's a video trailer for the game:
It's never easy implementing something completely new into your curriculum, but I was super impressed when Alice showed me a Google Slide presentation that she put together to help teach her students how to begin and navigate through the game. It was clear that she had taken the time to go through the Educator Guide and the game in order to capture screenshots and important information that her students would need in order to be successful. We will be continuing what she has started by putting together Common Sense Media lessons in Google Slide Presentations that will reinforce the most important lessons learned in Digital Compass.
Alice has done a great job stressing the importance of digital citizenship in her classroom! Thank you, Alice Baum and all of the 6th grade teachers for all of your hard work and dedication to your students and the Union School District!
The 6th grade team at Dartmouth has taken an impressive blended learning approach to teaching the Digital Compass lessons to students.
This week's EduWin goes out to Alice Baum, a 6th grade ELA and social studies teacher from Dartmouth Middle School, for the great work that she's done using Digital Compass to teach her 6th grade students about digital citizenship.
Alice has done a great job stressing the importance of digital citizenship in her classroom! Thank you, Alice Baum and all of the 6th grade teachers for all of your hard work and dedication to your students and the Union School District!
