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Common Sense Education provides educators and students with the resources they need to harness the power of technology for learning and life. Find a free K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum, reviews of popular EdTech apps, and resources for protecting student privacy.

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Seja incrível na internet é um programa multifacetado que inclui um jogo baseado na Web, chamado Interland, e um currículo educacional para ensinar às crianças como serem exploradores seguros e responsáveis no mundo on-line.

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Seja incrível na internet é um programa multifacetado que inclui um jogo baseado na Web, chamado Interland, e um currículo educacional para ensinar às crianças como serem exploradores seguros e responsáveis no mundo on-line.

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BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

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The Adventures of Kara, Winston and the SMART Crew | Childnet

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These cartoons illustrate 5 online safety SMART rules and include a real life SMART Crew of young people, who guide the cartoon characters in their quest, and help them make safe online decisions. The video below contains all chapters.

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Guide to internet safety and safe surfing for young people from Think U Know. Learn about online safety when using blogs, chatting, online gaming, P2P and other forms of technology like mobiles.

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Safer Internet Day 2016 reached 2.8 million children!

Safer Internet Day 2016 took place on the 9th February, with the theme Play your part for a better internet!

Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre the celebration saw over a thousand organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

They joined hundreds of individuals supporting the #SID2016 social media campaign to play your part and #shareaheart, which trended throughout the day and reached over 4 million in a mass tweet on the morning of Safer Internet Day.

The day of positive action came as the UK Safer Internet Centre launched a new report, Creating a Better Internet for All, that highlights young people's experiences of online empowerment and online hate.

Schools across the UK were using the UK Safer Internet Centre's Education Packs and Safer Internet Day TV films to explore these issues, and on Safer Internet Day the UK Safer Internet Centre took a group of young people to 10 Downing Street before hosting an event at the BT Centre in London to hear young people's perspectives.

As a result of all these action Safer Internet Day reached 2.8 million children and 2.5 million parents! The campaign won the Safety Award at the 2016 ISPA Awards as a result of the unprecedented reach and impact, which has doubled since 2014.

Thank you to everyone who played their part to help make the biggest Safer Internet Day yet. Together we can help make the internet a place of kindness and respect!

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Safer Internet Day 2016 took place on the 9th February, with the theme Play your part for a better internet! Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre the celebration saw over a thousand organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

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This is an introduction to the Cyber Safety Resource in the 21things4students Project. Complete the Quests to help make the connection between the "real" world and the "digital" world. The decisions made in your digital world affect you as much as those made in the real world.

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Your challenge is to open the Cyber Safe by completing Quests to help make the connection between the real world and the digital world. The decisions made in your digital world affect you as much as those made in the real world.

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There are affiliate links in many of the posts on this site. This means your purchase supports myself, my business, and my family when you click through to buy - at no additional cost to you. This site also uses cookies. Please see our full Disclosure & Privacy Policy for all details. Thank you!
Today's students have always known the internet. They have grown up in a world where much of the information we read each day comes from online sources. With this it's important for them to learn how to evaluate websites and decide which ones are credible. For that - try the tree octopus!

Yes, yes - you're probably thinking I'm ridiculously insane right now if you've never heard of this before. However, go do a quick search on the tree octopus. All sorts of sites show up! This phenomenon has been around long enough that sites show up with the word "hoax" prominently displayed. However, with a little ingenuity (or a class website) you can still set up a great lesson!

Setting up the Lesson

Send your students to the site http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Have them take notes about the tree octopus, and let them know they will be sharing these with the class. I recommend limiting the amount of time necessary for this. You don't want one of them catching on to the fact this animal is fake, and you also don't want to spend too much time on this lesson. After all, the point of the lesson is to teach them to EVALUATE websites - not honestly learn about the tree octopus.

Have a class discussion about what they learned. In my experience, they are going to enthusiastically share what they have read because they find it so fascinating. Slowly start questioning them. Ask things like, "Have you ever heard anything like this before?" or "Do you think it's too crazy to be true?"

Hopefully at this point they are beginning to question what they read a bit. Guide them in the direction of realizing they should do more research. You should pull up a Google search that look something like this:

Point out the words I've circled in red. Not that Google is perfect, but the students should realize that seeing multiple words like this should at least raise question marks in their head.

How far you go with the discussion is your call. However, I always used this as an introductory lesson for research projects and internet use. I wanted students to realize that they had to put some critical thinking skills to use when using the internet.

Another, Quicker Option

If you want a quicker lesson option, then simply pull up a couple websites with your class on your Interactive board. This way you control exactly what the students see. Get super excited. Show them how awesome and unique this is. Really build it up! Then start the discussion. Hopefully you have a few skeptics in the room.

The moral of this lesson that I always hoped my students understand is that just because they find something online does not mean it is true!

If you want to take this lesson even further, you can also try these sites: The Dog Island or Buy Tigers.
What do you think your students' reactions to this lesson would be? How do you plan on using this in the classroom? Please let me know in the comments below!
Octopus graphic by The Hazel Owl

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Using the TREE OCTOPUS to Teach Students to Evaluate Websites - Hojo's Teaching Adventures

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There are affiliate links in many of the posts on this site. This means your purchase supports myself, my business, and my family when you click through to buy - at no additional cost to you. This site also uses cookies. Please see our full Disclosure & Privacy Policy for all details.

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Learn how to protect your personal information and devices online and on-the-go.

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Internet Safety Cheat Sheet

Don't Worry, You're in the Right Place!
Protect Young Eyes and The Internet Safety Cheat Sheet have joined forces to provide even more help to parents and caring adults.
I'm Chris McKenna, the founder of Protect Young Eyes, and I have a great story to tell you.

The Internet Safety Cheat Sheet, created by Jen Gordon, has been a big hit with parents and educators who were looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide for protecting their children from digital dangers. Recently, Jen felt the Lord's call to pursue other options and began searching for a suitable home for her popular Cheat Sheet. Through a set of Divine circumstances, she discovered Protect Young Eyes, and quickly saw that we had a shared vision for protecting kids and equipping parents. That is why you have landed here! The Internet Safety Cheat Sheet is now a part of Protect Young Eyes.

In the Cheat Sheet, Jen laid out parental controls for popular Internet apps and websites. You can find the same information at Protect Young Eyes in the following places:

If you're new to Protect Young Eyes, you won't want to miss reading our three most popular blog posts here:

I'm so glad that you're here! I have four children of my own, between the ages of 5-12. I'm committed to protecting them from digital dangers and giving you the tools you need to protect the young eyes in your home.

We send a parent tech e-newsletter every 1-2 weeks to keep you informed of the latest digital trends. You can subscribe to the newsletter in the upper right of this page.

In addition to providing valuable information for parents, we also provide internet safety presentations for students (grades K-12), parents, and educators all over the U.S. Here's a recent quote from a principal at a Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Doug Crawford from the Protect Young Eyes team recently spoke to students:

"The Protect Young Eyes presentation empowered our students to be cautious and confident consumers of digital media. This program was the most necessary and powerful educational assembly we have provided our students in the last three years."

Welcome to Protect Young Eyes!

Inquire about a Presentation

Please follow and like us:

Living life to the full! That's why He died and how I try to live. I have an eclectic list of professional experience...CPA, business advisor, youth pastor, development director, now educational resource manager for Covenant Eyes. God shares wild ideas with me about life while I run. I want to show parents how to protect their kids from online dangers, which led to the creation of Protect Young Eyes. We recently created Virtue in Media, the first digital citizenship curriculum based on Scripture (www.virtueinmedia.com).

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Internet Safety Cheat Sheet and Protect Young Eyes Join Forces

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Protect Young Eyes and The Internet Safety Cheat Sheet have joined forces to provide even more help to parents and caring adults. I'm Chris McKenna, the founder of Protect Young Eyes, and I have a great story to tell you.

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The Digizen website has now closed and all relevant content and new resources are hosted here on the Childnet website.

Created in 2005, the Digizen website provided information for educators, parents, carers, and young people.

It was used to strengthen their awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is and encourage users of technology to be and become responsible DIGItal citiZENS.

Amongst the ground-breaking and popular resources hosted by the Digizen website was the award-winning film Let's Fight It Together, which shows ways in which cyberbullying can occur, who it involves, how it can affect different people, and what can be done to prevent it and respond to it.

Other resources, including the Digizen Game, has now been retired. Please see below for up-to-date resources from the Childnet Team.
Take a look at some of Childnet's other ground-breaking resources and projects from the past 25 years.

Donate

Even a small donation can support the development of our online safety resources and help our Education Team to connect with more children and young people.
Donate

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The Digizen website has now closed and all relevant content and new resources are hosted here on the Childnet website. Created in 2005, the Digizen website provided information for educators, parents, carers, and young people. It was used to strengthen their awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is and encourage users of technology to be and become responsible DIGItal citiZENS.