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Teacher Resources

A Cyber-Survival Guide

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Research Scenario

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Airplanes are wonderful modes of transportation that can take us to exciting places. But airplanes also stock survival kits on board in order to provide some amount of protection and safety for survivors in the event of a crash. In the novel Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, Brian Robeson survives an airplane crash in the Canadian wilderness and uses a survival kit he finds on board the airplane to help him stay alive. Along with the kit, he must use some basic safety and survival skills to get through this traumatic event.

Although cyberspace and cyber technology can take us to exciting places, there is a developing "wilderness" of risks and dangers that we all must navigate carefully in order to "survive." Many middle school students are quite adept at navigating the Internet, but they may not be fully aware of the risks and dangers that could end up causing them trouble along the way. All of us need to pack our Internet survival kits to ensure that we can always get safely to our information destination!

View a Video Safari playlist for a brief overview.

 Which are the most essential survival skills a middle school student needs in order to practice safe and responsible use of the Internet and other digital communication technologies?

Task and Product

 

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Your group has been charged with creating a Middle School Internet Survival Guide that is devoted to safe and smart Internet use. Because there are so many facets to Internet use, each of your group members will need to specialize in one aspect of Internet safety.

  • The privacy specialist will examine issues related to the sharing of personal information on the Internet.
  • The intellectual property specialist will investigate the problems surrounding plagiarism and illegal downloading.
  • The social networking specialist will research best safety practices for chat rooms and social networking sites such as MySpace.
  • The information reliability specialist will investigate strategies for evaluating the trustworthiness of information found on the Internet.
  • The peer interaction specialist will examine the issue of cyberbullying and how it can be prevented and stopped.

After conducting research individually, each team member will share his/her findings with the rest of the team. Team members will then work together to prepare a guide that includes important Internet safety and survival tips to be included in the Middle School Survival Guide.

Research Process Model

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The most difficult part of a research assignment is knowing where to begin! You may feel overwhelmed by the assignment, the vast amounts of information, all the reading you will need to do, and the decisions you must make in order to ace this assignment.

Check out the the Information Literacy Process Model for a step-by-step guide.

Assessments

 

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 The following scoring tools may be used or adapted by your teacher teacher to evaluate your research process and your final product and presentation.

Research Process Assessments:

Final Product Assessments: 

Questions

 

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Essential question guiding your team's research:

 Which are the most essential survival skills a middle school student needs in order to practice safe and responsible use of the Internet and other digital communication technologies?

Subsidiary Questions for each Survival Guide team-member:

Gather and Sort

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Gather information about your research topic from a variety of sources.

Record and sort your research findings using a worksheet, a Cornell notes style organizer, or note cards. If you prefer to take notes on lined paper, write each of your subsidiary questions at the top of a separate sheet of notebook paper.

Be sure to avoid plagiarism by properly paraphrasing and quoting in your writing. The following links provide extra practice in avoiding plagiarism:

Keep track of your resources for a bibliography. Cite all information sources you use for your team's list of Works Cited. Follow a guide to prepare your bibliography (works cited) or use an online site for help, such as one of the following:

Organize

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checkmarkIndividual Team-members:

  • Analyze your research notes to determine if you have answered your subsidiary questions.
    • Have you gathered sufficient details about your topic to create your section of the team brochure?

checkmarkTeams:

  • Meet as a team in order to have team members share their research findings.
    • What new insights have emerged about your topic?
    • Which facts are the most compelling and would best address the safety needs of a typical middle school student?
    • Decide together which information would be most important to include in your brochure.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of your team's research for the task..
    • Does your team have sufficient information to answer the essential question:

 Which are the most essential survival skills a middle school student needs in order to practice safe and responsible use of the Internet and other digital communication technologies?

checkmarkIndividual Team Members:

  • Synthesize your findings by writing a first draft of your Internet safety brochure.

Conclusion

 

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Meet as a team in order to:

  • Design and create a cover page for your team brochure, including the name of each team-member.
  • Write a brief introduction to the information. Why is it important?
  • Have each team member create his/her own section of information based on his/her specialty area.
  • Revisit the brochure assessment to be sure you have satisfied the requirements.
  • Present your brochure.

Extension:

  • Plan an Internet Safety Night for parents and/or the local community. Reproduce student-created brochures to share with parents and community members. Consider obtaining additional free materials from sites such as those listed under the General Internet Resources category on the Student Resources page.
  • Take advantage of student service learning opportunities related to cybersafety. Join an organization like TeenAngels and help plan a TeenAngel chapter for your school.