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How do we find a happy balance between our online and offline activities?

Vocabulary Show definitions

balance - having equal weight or importance of something

device - an electronic piece of equipment like a phone, tablet, or laptop

This lesson meets standards for Common Core ELA , ISTE , CASEL , and AASL . See standards

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Media Balance Is Important | Common Sense Education

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How do we find a happy balance between our online and offline activities? Check out Media Balance Is Important, a free digital citizenship lesson plan from Common Sense Education, to get your kindergarten students thinking critically and using technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate.

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Song that teaches online safety

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Pause & Think Online (2013 - OLD VERSION)

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Googly Eyes - Dooby Wop the Robot teaches the Polkadots about Cyber Safety

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Digital Citizenship Poster for Elementary Classrooms

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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

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I thought I'd share a little song I teach my students when we first get the ipads out at the beginning of the year! Maybe you can use it. I also use Heidisongs great rules poster that you can find {}.

Click {} to download the song poster

If you have a student who is really struggling with following the expectations and NOTHING seems to work? What about a Technology Treat (aka... iPad time!)?

This behavior contract allows the student to earn stickers and once the chart is filled out, they can play the learning game on the ipad for 5-10 minutes. It WORKS!

Click {} to download the song poster

My favorite app for them to play during this time is the Teach Me app. It is a paid app but it's SO worth it! I bought the 1st grade version and it's a bit too easy for my kiddos, but is great for my kiddos that need a great deal of intervention. Look into buying a grade above what you teach.

We are thrilled to share our *newish* blog design with you all. We wanted to keep our look the same, but add a few professional looking touches.

We love Lindsay from Happy Potamus Designs and have been happy to have her do some work for us on more than one occasion.

What do you think?

Like the new look?

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I thought I'd share a little song I teach my students when we first get the ipads out at the beginning of the year! Maybe you can use it. I also use Heidisongs great rules poster that you can find {}.

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Keep your password to yourself!

So much is going on in the busy one-to-one classroom. Keyboards are clicking, mice are wiggling, the Internet is buzzing. How do you keep it under control? A little visual reinforcement doesn't hurt to keep your students on track! Just submit your email to get our free classroom tech rules posters. Each poster illustrates an important classroom rule for the one-to-one classroom.

1. Save your work.

The save button is your best friend.

2. Think before you print.

Save a tree.

3. Keep your password to yourself.

Passwords aren't for sharing.

4. Eyes on your own screen.

Mind your business.

5. Leave tricky stuff to the experts.

There's no need to start dissecting the computers. 😀

6. Watch where you click.

It's a scary Internet out there.

7. Keep food and drink away from technology.

Spaghetti doesn't belong on keyboards.

8. Respect the laptop.

No juggling allowed.

Get My Classroom Tech Rules Posters!

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Get Our Free Poster Set: Classroom Tech Rules

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Keep your password to yourself! So much is going on in the busy one-to-one classroom. Keyboards are clicking, mice are wiggling, the Internet is buzzing. How do you keep it under control? A little visual reinforcement doesn't hurt to keep your students on track! Just submit your email to get our free classroom tech rules posters.

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If You Give a Mouse an iPhone, Ann Droyd

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TEK The Modern Cave Boy read aloud by Books With Blue

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Cell Phoney (Safe & Respectful Cell Phone Rules for Children & Teens) by Julia Cook

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Safety in My Online Neighborhood

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Common Sense Education has partnered with CYBER.ORG to support cybersecurity education. If you want to build on the themes from this lesson, we recommend the following resources from CYBER.ORG's content library:

Layered Security (Grades K-2): Students learn about the physical security around their school and how to verify someone's identity.

Stronger Together (Grades K-2): Students learn to use more than one security tool to keep people, places, and devices safe.

Our collaboration with CYBER.ORG was made possible with the generous support of Craig Newmark Philanthropies.

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Safety in My Online Neighborhood | Common Sense Education

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How do you go places safely online? Check out Safety in My Online Neighborhood, a free digital citizenship lesson plan from Common Sense Education, to get your kindergarten students thinking critically and using technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate.

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It is October and that means Common Sense Media is sponsoring Digital Citizenship Week--- October 16th-22nd. Every school district has their own way of teaching digital citizenship (or maybe not?) and it is really one of the most important things we can do as educators in today's digital world. If you are a classroom teacher, librarian, technology teacher or anyone else that might have the responsibility of teaching digital citizenship without a curriculum, then I highly suggest looking into Common Sense Media's resources. They provide low-prep lessons in three different formats: downloadable PDFs, Nearpods and iBooks Textbooks as well as a comprehensive curriculum.

Here are 5 E-A-S-Y techie activity ideas you could carry out with your class once you have reviewed all of the main components that make up digital citizenship:

The other day I stumbled upon Southfield Christian School's Digital Tattoo lesson that can be downloaded HERE. They used PicCollage to create a digital tattoo poster that contained words of wisdom when it comes to using technology." Everything you do online is permanent, just like a tattoo." How cute did this turn out?

This got me thinking...is there an app that you can put tattoo images on yourself? Well, OF COURSE there is...there truly is an app for everything. Tattoo Art, Tattoo Me and Tattoo You are three FREE apps that I found. Here are my reviews of each:

Tattoo Me

Most realistic out of all three apps

Only images can be added

Very easy to use

Ability to add a variety of images

Some of the fairy tattoos are somewhat questionable

Free version has an ad banner at the bottom

Saves without a watermark

Ability to add a variety of images

Ability to add text (free version has 2 fonts you can choose from)

Limited images available but you can purchase packs

No ads

Saves without a watermark

I would use this digital citizenship activity to also tie in a little lesson about symbolism and have students choose images that symbolize how they will conduct themselves when using the internet. Make it into a writing activity! Here is an example (We pulled the image into PowerPoint (you could also do a Google Doc) and added text):

If you don't have access to iPads but you like this idea of a digital tattoo, check out the website Photofunia. Students can upload a picture or take a picture within the website and type a short one liner (talk about summarizing practice!) to create something like this:

You could also pull a photo into a PowerPoint Slide or Google Slide and add text & images overlays.

The idea that everything you do on the internet is permanent, just like a tattoo, is truly meaningful!

Another easy activity is to have students create their own digital citizenship memes. Kids LOVE memes! Use a meme generator like imgflip to choose a photo and add a catchy tagline like these two examples:

Students can even upload pictures of themselves using technology and make a meme! Here is an example:

This website also works on iPads!

A super fun activity that I have blogged about before (read more HERE) is creating commercials using the free app, Yak-It Kids ( ALERT: YakIt is not currently working with the newest iOS update.) Have students take a picture of technology in their classroom and make it come alive and talk using the app. Here are some examples of Internet Safety commercials a 5th grade class created last year:

Internet Safety Commercials

If you don't have access to iPads to make pictures come alive and talk then you could try the free websites ABCya Talkify and Blabberize. Note: I have had issues in the past with ABCya Talkify not downloading correctly and Blabberize requires you to create an account. Will someone PLEASE create a website or Chrome extension that will let our students easily make their pictures come alive and talk without having to create an account??? (Let me know in the comments if one exists and I have missed it!) :)

Something your students might really enjoy while also applying their understanding of digital citizenship in a creative way is to make a comic strip. There are many online comic strip makers but one of my favorites is the website StoryBoard That. I like this particular site because you can customize SO much and there is a large variety of scenes, characters, and props. Students will love being able to:

change the color of most everything on their characters & props

change their characters' poses & facial expressions

choose from a variety of scenes and make them appear in daylight or nightlight

apply filters

upload their own images to add to their scenes

search for whatever they might need

Here is an example of a finished comic about digital citizenship (YES, they have most Social Media icons!):

In order to save your image the website asks for you to create an account. However, a work around for this is to have your students simply take a screenshot before closing out.

Do you have access to iPads? Then check out Technology Integration's post about making comics on the iPad by clicking HERE. Tons of great ideas over there!

If you are gaagaa over Google, then you might be interested in my Digital Citizenship in Google Slides student project that is available in my TpT Store.

Use this as a culminating project for students to summarize their learning and understanding of digital citizenship. Two different grading rubrics are provided: one that is just print & go and another that allows you to customize your own grading criteria categories. Check out my promo video to see this product in action:

I also have some close reading passages (yes, ON PAPER) that I created for teachers to use when they do not have access to technology, send home as homework, or just need a good old fashioned paper & pencil assessment:

Be sure to grab my Digital Citizenship Badge

to give to your students once they have completed your digital citizenship "course".

Today's children NEED to be exposed to the good, the bad and the ugly that revolves around digital citizenship so they are prepared to act accordingly when they run into trouble that is lurking within the cyber world. Have fun molding your students into exemplary digital citizens (well...that's our goal, right??). Heather Marrs who blogged on ISTE's website said it best: "Don't just teach digital citizenship, EMBED it!"

Follow me on Pinterest to get more techie ideas:

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5 EASY Techie Ideas for Digital Citizenship Activities

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It is October and that means Common Sense Media is sponsoring Digital Citizenship Week--- October 16th-22nd. Every school district has their own way of teaching digital citizenship (or maybe not?) and it is really one of the most important things we can do as educators in today's digital world.

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Let me introduce you to Mr. Badura's "Digital Citizenship Survival Kit." Each of the items has a purpose. We spend a considerable amount of time addressing Digital Citizenship at Aurora Public Schools and I truly believe we are preparing students for their lives in the digital world.

Here are the items I have in my "Digital Citizenship Survival Kit" and what each item represents:

The padlock is to remind students to set strong passwords and to set up passcode locks on all of their digital devices. "Lock 'em down" as we like to say in our Digital Citizenship lessons.

I tell students to think that passwords and toothbrushes are very similar in the fact that you NEVER want to share passwords. (I do highly encourage/recommend that students to share passwords with parents)

Everything that you put online is permanent....even if you hit the delete button after posting. Odds are someone has retweeted, favorited, or taken a screenshot of the material if it was questionable.

Imagine the information that you are putting online is like the toothpaste coming out of the tube. Once it is out, it is almost impossible to get it all back in the tube! (Thanks to @Mandery for that prop idea!)

The survival kit is very simple. It has been a very effective prop in getting students to think about their online behavior.

I would love to hear suggestions you might have to make my Digital Citizenship Survival Kit even better.

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Let me introduce you to Mr. Badura's "Digital Citizenship Survival Kit." Each of the items has a purpose. We spend a considerable amount of time addressing Digital Citizenship at Aurora Public Schools and I truly believe we are preparing students for their lives in the digital world.

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Digital Citizenship Survival Kit by K. Lowden

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TOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink

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Officer Armstrong is a new recruit to the Badromeda Police Department. She specializes in cybercrime. She uses computers and technology to catch those using the internet for illegal purposes. In her free time she likes to travel and is a recreational extreme hoverboard enthusiast.