Tuesday, February 11th is International Safer Internet Day (SID)

Our Design class at TMS-M has decided to commemorate this day by using the "design cycle" to create solutions for problems associated with internet safety. The design cycle consists of these 5 steps: investigate/identify a problem; brainstorm, narrow down, and specify a design to solve the problem; plan the materials, resources, and steps to create the design; actually create the design; and, finally, evaluate the design. Students' evidence of using these steps of the design cycle will be saved as a document on their Google drives. The actual designs or solutions will be posted on a blog we've created for this project. Students may choose any digital or 3D medium they wish in which to create their solutions/designs, including instructive videos, applications, manuals, advice columns, blogs, posters, etc.  

The objective is to raise awareness about Internet safety and for students to showcase what they've done to help with Internet safety.  I will also post the students' design ideas on the US SID (Safer Internet Day) site, ConnectSafely.org. The website communicates that their campaign, called "One Good Thing" 

... encourages all Americans to share 'One Good Thing' they've done or will do to make the Internet a better place or the world a better place using the Internet. All users -- young people, parents, educators, law enforcement people, policymakers and organizations -- are encouraged to participate by posting short (20 - to - 30 second) videos or text comments at SaferInternetDay.us/one-good-thing.

During today's Design class, we showed the students a short video that explains the history of SID and how it has become an international event. We then opened up a class discussion about how the internet or daily participation in the digital world has affected them positively and negatively.  We then brainstormed ideas for making the internet more safe or less hostile.  Students began their investigations of a specific web or digital-related safety problem, working alone or in pairs in our library's computer lab. Some students even began their design stage of brainstorming, selecting, and justifying a design to solve that problem. On Digital Learning Day, Thursday of this week, we will be working on the designs. The end products may not be completed by the 11th, but the ideas can still be posted on the One Good Thing blog on that day. I am looking forward to learning about what the students have identified as problems and their solutions.

Lavanda Wagenheim is the IB Coordinator for the Tuscaloosa Magnet School - Middle.  Connect with her on Twitter, where her handle is @ELavanda.