Empowerment and Internet search

flickr photo shared by William M Ferriter under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC ) license

“Are we gonna watch an Internet video today?”

That was the first thing my students asked me when entering the room! How exciting to see that they are so interested in the privacy/copyright/cyber bullying issue!
What did I do then? I plugged in the microphone and asked them what the Internet is for?

[audio mp3="https://magalibrutel.coetail.com/files/2015/11/WhatInternetfor.mp3"][/audio]
So they got it! They understood the power of the Internet. However it’s still for them a dangerous place.

[audio mp3="https://magalibrutel.coetail.com/files/2015/12/DangerousInternet.mp3"][/audio]

Then, some reminded that there is no difference between online and offline worlds. Some people are still mean to each other on the playground! While listening to them, I gave them this comparison: the Internet and a sharp object. It may be dangerous only if we don’t use it properly. But if we take it the right way, it’s a powerful tool! And as any sharp object, we need to learn how to handle it.

I couldn’t help and show them some parts of Martha Payne’s story. And then it started again about the cyber-bullying. I had to stop the discussion as it could have gone for the whole of the lesson but I promised them to talk about it again. Fortunately I’m not the only to educate them about it.

Even though they understand the Internet, they see it in a negative way. Having that in mind, how can I make them understand the power of the Internet and how can I make them use it?
I like how David Weinberger wrote on the preface of the book Small pieces loosely joined, a unified theory of the web.

I'm one of those who believes that we can only be individuals because we are members of groups. Our families, our communities, and our culture make us what we are. And once we are what we are, we are still unthinkable outside the groups with whom we live; maroon us on a desert isle, and we'll form an association with a volley ball if we have to. So if a new infrastructure comes along that allows us to connect with everyone else on the planet and to invent new types of connections, this is big news indeed.

I fully agree with Josh Weisgrau when he said

It is therefore incumbent on individual educators to help students interact with media in ways that are critical and empowering. We cannot limit this work to media that we have selected for quality or educational value. We should look for ways to engage critical thinking around students' everyday media uses, whether through planned projects and lessons or informal engagement.

In his article Empowering student relationship with media, he talked about a new taxonomy which I just found brilliant!
I’m definitely going to keep it in mind to plan some lessons.
Now, whatever I’m going to do with my students, the activities need to be age-appropriate and they need to suit my teaching practices and the units we are learning and most of all practical!

I want my students to be critical-thinker, creative, good communicator and collaborator. So in my opinion, teaching them good research skills would be a good start for the grade 5. Internet search is something that I just love to do. It is more than the simple “googling” to find the name of an artist or a movie. I use different search engines, I also search in different countries and different languages (mostly in French and in English), I type my request differently.
Internet search is really a form of literacy and everything has to be taught like how to read a results page and which link to click on.
And the cherry on the top with an Internet search, it can be done in French!! In our next unit, they are going to learn about different cultures. And that ‘s a subject that could be safely search.

I found this article very interesting. In Building good search skills: what students need to know, Tascha Bergson-Michelson answered my questions and assumptions that students have about searching on the Internet.
A report from the UK suggest that only 31% of preteens can recognize an add from real search result.

Teaching Internet search would be a start to help the kids having their own idea about the Internet, it would make them discover what it's shared, how connections are made; that we could make mistake online and what can be done to fix them. It would help them understand how to curate their digital footprint, it would help them become good digital citizenship. It would be the premise of the empowerment.

flickr photo shared by weconomy book under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-SA ) license