2019 DigCit Week - Student creations

Students from ESU 8 who attended this year's Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium created positive campaigns to take back to their school and community for DigCitWeek 2019.

O'Neill High School

8th grade students from O'Neill High School created the following video PSAs to share with students at both the Elementary and High School buildings.

In addition, this O'Neill High School Digital Citizenship team appeared on Eagle Eye Broadcasting- Daily Announcements during DigCit Week and shared their message. 

West Holt High School

7th grade students from West Holt created a social media campaign with graphics shared on their school twitter channel all week long. 

Ewing Public School

6th and 7th grade students from Ewing Public School organized a TikTok challenge for Digital Citizenship Week. 

Thank you, ESU 8 students, for showing all of us how we can each "Be the One" to make a difference online. 

Digital Citizenship Week 2019... for teachers

This week, October 14-18, is Digital Citizenship Week. Digital Citizenship Week is a good time remember to incorporate DigCit lessons into our classrooms and school culture. However, like with other similar campaigns, we shouldn't limit our students' exposure to this important topic solely during this week. The following are some current resources to jump start DigCit activities this week and throughout the school year.  Use the latest films from ILovePublicSchools to spur discussion with students and faculty. The Mind Inside: Episode Two was released just last Friday and it tackles a highly sensitive topic (suicide) and the implications of social media on today's kids. If time or nature doesn't allow viewing of the full length film, then perhaps watching the 3 minute trailer would be enough to launch healthy discussion with our students about their digital device usage in today's world.  There are two sides to every issue. DigCitCommit is a new coalition working to promote the positive side of digital citizenship. Included on the site is a DigCitCommit Challenge where prizes can be earned for classroom projects.  Also, the following links take you to additional Digital Citizenship resources for teachers: Free Lessons from Nearpod and Flocabulary Common Sense Education's Digital Citizenship Week Update Google's Be Internet Awesome curriculum — including 26 ready-to-teach #digcit lessons powered by Pear Deck, 6 Flashcard Factory vocabulary lists, family resources, and more. Free (online) DigCitSummit this week from the Digital Citizenship Institute. Register for a time slot ASAP.

2018 Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium

#BeKindBeSafe

On September 25, 2018, school teams from across the state of Nebraska assembled to promote digital citizenship. Six different sites (Fremont, Beatrice, Columbus, O'Neill, Kearney, Scottsbluff) hosted teams of 4-6 students along with at least one adult (teacher, administrator, and/or parents). Using Zoom video conferencing, all sites could hear from the speakers of the day. Also built in was time to interact locally and work as a school team on an action plan to bring the information back to their community.

The following are resources used during the Digital Citizenship Symposium so that others may access and learn as well.

Karen Haase, Attorney of Education Law, KSB School Law

View Karen's slides at: https://www.ksbschoollaw.com/new-events/2018/9/25/digital-citizenship-symposium 

Nebraska State Patrol - Investigator Dean Christensen

Kahoot "Don't Fall For It" game link.

Also, be sure to read this Article in the Beatrice newspaper about the event.

Don't Forget that Digital Citizenship Week is October 15-18. I have a feeling that many of this year's Student Teams will be making a positive impact in their schools during that week (and hopefully all year long!)

Free EdTech Resources for Computer Science and Digital Citizenship

Any teacher. All students. Either recently released or new this school year, we didn't want you to miss the opportunity to incorporate these important instructional technology lessons into your curriculum.

How Computers Work free video series with related careers from Code.org target audience: MS-HS Learn More Be Internet Awesome free Digital Citizenship curriculum and online game from Google target audience: grades 4-6 Learn More Everyone Can Code free coding curriculum with apps and learning materials from Apple target audience: K-12+ Learn More

Digital Citizenship Week 2017

Visit Digital Citizenship Week site

Digital Citizenship should not be an "event", but rather an everyday occurance. However, this past week was a good reminder to be incorporating these important lessons for our students.  At ESU 8 we celebrated by sharing a week's worth of proactive tips-- what to do before students get into trouble online-- to promote positive digital citizenship.  Use any of the following as starting points to launch your next online learning experience for students. Or better yet, request ESU 8 to partner with you and support the journey. Visit ESU8PD on Instagram for more instant PD tips.

Resources: TextingStory app ifaketextmessage.com Resources: Keynote Bitmoji WeeMee Resources: Digital Citizenship Survival Kit Resources: Share Your Work Creative Commons Resources: Paper Blogging Table Top Twitter Blog Comments Sort Resources: Common Sense Education 21things4students Childnet Media Smarts

A reminder of how to use copyright-friendly media sources

If you are looking for sites with copyright friendly, appropriate media for students to use for projects, we would love to share a few tips, in case you were not already familiar. 

Probably the easiest way to search for filtered, copyright friendly images is simply by using advanced features of Google’s image search. 

1) Search images.google.com like normal.

2) On the results screen, click on Tools.

3) This gives you a variety of advanced settings for the images that Google finds. Your students can find more relevant images by choosing certain sizes, colors, or types (photographs, line art, etc.). But what is most important is under Usage Rights. Select ANY of the Usage Rights options (other than ’Not filtered by license’) and you will find that your results are fewer, but the ones that are left are marked for reuse, therefore definitely more copyright friendly.

* For best results, always save images from a webpage where they are full size and not simply the thumbnails from the Google Image Search results page. 

There are many sites where the media is all filtered for reuse. 

Our personal favorites for students and teachers include the following:

• http://photosforclass.com (every image automatically contains a citation on the bottom of it!)
• http://pixabay.com (scroll past the featured images in the top rows and every image is public domain - no citation required at all!)
• http://search.creativecommons.org (multiple options for searching for copyright-friendly media, so students can try more than one place)
• http://pics4learning.com 

Here is a much longer list of copyright-friendly media sites here, especially if you are looking for a certain kind of media and a more obscure topic.

Also here is a poster created for an elementary teacher that they could hang in the classroom. It has QR codes to go to a few of the most popular sites so that students can scan the codes and go straight to the image-finding sites.

Myths on Copyright and Acceptable Use

Digital Citizenship Resources for Educators

The 2016 Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium was held on September 27, 2016.  Five sites concurrently hosted teams from over 40 Nebraska school districts.  School teams consisted of administrators, teachers, parents, and students-- all gathered together to learn how to #bethekey to bring better digital citizenship practices back to their communities.

Speakers for the day included:

• Karen Haase, KSB Law, @KarenHaase
• Craig Badura, Aurora Public Schools, @mrbadura
• Hunter Radenslaben, Waverly High School, @AthleteNation
• Keegan Korf, Common Sense Media, @CommonSenseEd
• Stephanie Bernthal, ESU 17, @SBernthal

School teams created digital posters and action plans to take back to their schools, all emphasizing how each of them could #bethekey to better digital citizenship. View their creative creations here:

Many takeaways happened over the course of the day and beyond, as schools not only shared within their teams, but also with each other.

I've collected some key resources to accompany the event to help continue to promote digital citizenship with your students, teachers, and community.

• Common Sense Media has a great K-12 Implementation Plan linked to their free digital citizenship lessons that could be followed as a district's scope and sequence.
• Mindy McBride (@mindymindyp) from Lynch Public Schools requested an easy-to-access poster with QR codes for her students to scan when looking for copyright friendly images.  I put this one together from some of the most commonly recommended image sites. Feel free to use this poster in your classrooms as well. https://goo.gl/OpnS9P 
• Don't forget TASL (Title, Author, Source/Site, License) when giving attribution to Creative Commons licensed photos!
• Jennifer Showalter (@JKShowalter) from Norfolk Public Schools shared her CyberNinja Quests site that she built for use with her Jr. High Technology Classes.  
• 21 Things for Students from REMC Association of Michigan has some great mini-units dealing with digital citizenship and related topics.
• A collection of digital citizenship resources from Kara Welty

Digital Citizenship is an ongoing challenge, but an extremely important one. Continue the conversations in your school on this critical topic. 

Digital Citizenship resources from Common Sense Education... Teachers, get them NOW!

Common Sense Education, longtime advocate for digital citizenship practices in schools, has just announced that their very popular iBooks textbooks will begin to cost money.

While this is disappointing news, it is encouraging that teachers have one whole month to still download any of the Digital Citizenship series for free. Better yet, all textbooks have just been updated! So if you have ever downloaded them in the past, be sure to update them sometime before October 1, 2016.

Below are the direct links to the four interactive student workbooks for iBooks along with the accompanying teacher's editions.

Grades K-2 Curriculum (Teachers Edition): Digital Citizenship Curriculum 2016

Grades K-2 Student Workbook: Digital Citizenship 2016

Grades 3-5 Curriculum (Teachers Edition): Digital Citizenship Curriculum Common Sense Education

Grades 3-5 Student Workbook: Digital Citizenship Common Sense Education

Grades 6-8 Curriculum (Teachers Edition): Digital Citizenship Curriculum Common Sense Education

Grades 6-8 Student Workbook: Digital Citizenship Common Sense Education

Grades 9-12 Curriculum (Teachers Edition): Digital Citizenship Curriculum 2016

Grades 9-12 Student Workbook: Digital Citizenship 2016

A final reminder to also consider last minute registration to send a team to the Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium, being held at various locations across the state on September 27, 2016. Read more about the details at this site: 

http://nebraskadcs.wikispaces.com/Registration

As always, don't hesitate to reach out to the Technology Integrationists at ESU 8 to answer any of your digital citizenship questions or needs. 

#bethekey

Student PSA contest: Drive4Life

From an email from Scholastic: Student PSA Contest to help prevent distracted walking

View in browser  Sponsored Encourage your students in grades 6–12 to create a public service announcement (PSA) for the 2016 Drive2Life Contest to help prevent distracted walking. PRIZES INCLUDE: • One Grand Prize student winner will receive $1,000 and a trip to New York City to work with an Emmy-winning director to turn his or her vision into a 30-second PSA. Plus, the winner will be featured on the nationally broadcast TV show Teen Kids News and in select Scholastic magazines. • Four student runners-up (two from grades 6–8 and two from grades 9–12) will each receive $500. • The teacher of each student winner will receive a one-year subscription to a Scholastic magazine. Go to scholastic.com/drive2life for free lessons on pedestrian safety and creating a PSA. See Official Rules. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. The Drive2Life Contest (“Contest”) is open to students who are currently enrolled in grades 6–12 in one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, who are legal residents of the United States, and who attend a public school, accredited private school, or home school (“Schools”) in compliance with the laws of its state. To enter the Contest, each student must create a storyboard or written script on 8.5 x 11-inch paper for a 30-second public service announcement (“PSA”) to help prevent distracted walking. One entry per person. One Grand Prize student winner will receive $1,000 plus a trip to New York City, where a professional film team will transform his/her PSA into a 30-second commercial. Four runner-up student winners (two from grades 6–8 and two from grades 9–12) each receive $500 (Total ARV of student prizes: $4,950). Teachers of winning students receive Scholastic magazines (ARV of each subscription: $247.50–$299.70). Entries must be postmarked by February 5, 2016, and received by February 19, 2016. See complete Official Rules at www.scholastic.com/drive2life/rules.   Visit Scholastic.com For Teachers | For Parents | For Kids Please add snp@message.scholastic.com to your address book.  We hope you enjoyed receiving this message from Scholastic National Partnerships. If you would rather not receive promtional emails from Scholastic National Partnerships, please follow this link. Please visit the Scholastic Preference Center to update your personal information and to manage your email subscriptions. Email Marketing, Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 | 1-800-SCHOLASTIC Privacy Policy | Scholastic Inc. | Terms of Use ©1996-2015 Scholastic Inc.