Using CyberSmarts eBooks....Our Students Created Animoto's To Teach Others About Staying Safe Online

A big part of the Library and Technology curriculum at Van Meter focuses around Digital Citizenship.  The curriculum encompasses digital citizenship, technology, information literacy, and a love of reading.  In each grade level, there are certain things that are included under the topic of staying safe online such as, "learning how to create a safe password, describing consequences when people do not protect personal information when using social networking tools, and using technology responsibly."   

You can find the Van Meter 2012-13 Digital Citizenship, Technology and Library Science Curriculum online. 

I have taught our students and school community about staying safe online for six years, but last year I was so excited to purchase and start using the CyberSmarts series from Rosen Publishing.  Since then our students have been learning so many valuable lessons from the two sets of CyberSmarts eBooks.  

Please watch this video here that gives a great overview of CyberSmarts for grades 3-6 and 7-12.  

I added our two sets of CyberSmarts interactive eBooks to Van Meter's mackinVIA and they are also searchable within Destiny.  I want to give our school community access to these important eBooks, not just our students within the school.  

To start the Digital Citizenship work off with the fourth graders, we had a great discussion the second week of school about what it means to be a Digital Citizen.   Our job as teachers and parents is to teach them what their responsibilities are as they use, create, collaborate, and connect using technology.

And the interactive eBooks that make up the CyberSmarts series are just one way we can be assured that our students have the knowledge and skills that they need.

After the students read and worked through Protecting Your Privacy Online, I explained the project that they would be creating using the knowledge from the eBooks and the Web 2.0 tool, Animoto.  In Animoto; text slides, photo slides, music, and transitions are put together to "create stunning videos."

They will be creating an Animoto to teach the other students in our elementary and globally about staying safe online.  Within each Animoto, they need to include the title, the name of each group member, 10 or more informational slides, 10 or more slides with images to support the informational slides, ending, and a bibliography.  

In order to create a well organized, effective, and creative Animoto, I created this little storyboard for them to lay their project out on.  We talked about the beginning and end of digital products such as this.

I also reviewed iClipArt.com with the third graders.  They used this website last year during their country projects to find clip art and real photographs as well.  They are able to find, open, and copy the images to use within digital products such as an Animoto.  

The 4th graders picked a partner and then set off to work.  They logged into mackinVIA, found the eBooks right away, and started to pull information from within the eBook.

They took that information and filled out the storyboard, paying close attention to short, important statements.  They also wrote down ideas for their images.

I loved seeing them work so hard and take such pride in their work.

Now it was time for them to use Animoto.  They were able to put them together within 30-60 minutes because their storyboards contained the information that they needed.  

Allen and Ryder had so much fun creating their "Internet Safety" Animoto. 

I couldn't wait to show the entire class their AWESOME Animoto's.  

Below are two more of the Animoto's...

And by the end of the week, I will have all of them organized into a wiki so you can take a look at each one.

I can't wait to see them....

And I especially can't wait until we share them with others and the world.