Byte Sized -- What Kids Should Know how to Do: Digital Footprint

Todays' blog post is the next post in a series of posts sharing the TL;DR information available in the Illinois Computer Literacy Knowledge and Skill Development Continuum adopted May 2022. In this  series, it is hoped that you will have a better understanding of what technology skills our students are expected to have at different grade levels. Of course, each student is different -- some will acquire these skills sooner than their peers; some will acquire them later. These are meant to be a guide for teachers. 

Computer literacy isn't just something that is taught in "computer class" by a "computer teacher." Because the use of computing devices impacts our students at school and at home, for school work, for socializing, and for fun or entertainment, computer literacy is something every educator needs to assist students with. It is my hope that by summarizing these skills for you, it will be easier for you to find ways to help students develop, refine, and retain the computer literacy skills they will need and use for the rest of their lives.

You can find the actual continuum here. What you will see in these posts and the linked spreadsheet are my interpretations and summaries.

My adorable grandson, Freddie, had a digital footprint before he was even born. How can that be? Sure, kids today are digital natives, but surely they aren't fluent with technology in utero! Nope. A person's digital footprint is made up of anything that can be found about them online, whether they post/share it or not. In Freddie's case, ultrasound pictures of him shared on social media became part of his digital footprint before he even had a name! This is why it's important for kids to understand that they likely have an online reputation or record before they can even understand the concept. When analyzing the continuum linked above, it's worth noting that

• Starting in grade 2, kids should start to know the difference between what is considered public data about them and private data about them.
• As early as kindergarten, kids should start to understand the concept of their digital footprint, and by grade 3, they should be starting to learn ways to monitor and manage it.
• Starting in kindergarten, kids should start learning that there are ways to be safe and unsafe online, and by grade 3, they should be learning and practicing specific techniques for being safe.

Check out my summary here under the "Digital Footprint" tab.

So, I hate being the only one sharing ideas because I know so many of you have great thoughts to share, so let's do a little crowdsource brainstorming on Jamboard! Click here to access a Jamboard file that has 3 frames on it. Each frame has a discussion topic. Pick as many as you would like to add to and share your thoughts on digital footprint learning strategies! Not sure how to use Jamboard? No problem! Here's a quick primer for this activity:

1.) Click this link to access the Jamboard file.

2.) Click this icon to add a sticky note.

3.) Click these arrows to move back and forth between frames.

Byte-Sized: What Kids Should be Able to Do -- Online Privacy

 Todays' blog post is the next post in a series of posts sharing the TL;DR information available in the Illinois Computer Literacy Knowledge and Skill Development Continuum adopted May 2022. In this  series, it is hoped that you will have a better understanding of what technology skills our students are expected to have at different grade levels. Of course, each student is different -- some will acquire these skills sooner than their peers; some will acquire them later. These are meant to be a guide for teachers. 

Computer literacy isn't just something that is taught in "computer class" by a "computer teacher." Because the use of computing devices impacts our students at school and at home, for school work, for socializing, and for fun or entertainment, computer literacy is something every educator needs to assist students with. It is my hope that by summarizing these skills for you, it will be easier for you to find ways to help students develop, refine, and retain the computer literacy skills they will need and use for the rest of their lives.

You can find the actual continuum here. What you will see in these posts and the linked spreadsheet are my interpretations and summaries.

Keeping personal data safe online is challenging enough for adults, but if kids start to learn about how to do this, then they can hopefully be savvy about it as they get older!

When you look at the tab on this spreadsheet labeled, "Online Privacy," you'll see that much of this information doesn't even need to start being addressed until grade 4, and most of it is not secured knowledge until beyond grade 8. However, when students hit the grade levels for each of these items, it's going to be important to have these concepts reinforced across the board, not just in one class or only at home. Here are some ideas how this can be done for each item:

• Adjusting privacy settings on social media, online services, devices, and browsers
• Talk about the importance of privacy settings.
• Have kids find and watch videos about how to adjust privacy settings on the sites/apps they use most often (Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.).
• Share articles with kids when you see them that share information (how to's, cautionary tales) about privacy settings.
• Be a role model and use privacy settings on your own social media.
• Apply login security principles for safe use of online and mobile applications used to make payments.
• Talk about identity theft and account hacking.
• Talk about how to monitor for identity theft (using a monitoring service, checking transaction history regularly, checking for the lock symbol to be sure online purchases are secured).
• Identify when sensitive personal information has been compromised online and know how to handle it.
• Share strategies with students about how to manage compromised accounts (report, block, change logins, close accounts).
• Share "warning signs" (locked out of account, suspicious notifications).
• Share risks to personal information being compromised (spam, links in ads, attachments in emails).
• Use multi-factor authorization.
• Know the synonyms for this term (two-step authorization, two-factor authorization).
• Know what it means (when you log in to an account, it asks for more than one way to be sure it is you -- example: password AND text message code).
• Understand and share why this is valuable (extra layer of security to keep others from gaining access to your account without your knowledge).

Want to share more about this information with your students? I would love to come do a lesson with them on security! Just comment of this post that you'd like me to come in and I'll get in touch to schedule!