Home Schooling ICT, part 2: Copyright.

The focus of this week’s lesson was to look at the privacy and legal issues of online behaviours. I wanted to introduce the idea that web sites (and therefore other people) know more about her that she explicitly gives permission, and that even though digital piracy is easy, digital commerce is easier.

Lesson 2: Staying safe and legal with other digital media

Objectives:

·       Identifying types of digital media

·       Understanding ownership of digital media

·       Understanding comparative value of digital versus physical media

1.     Write a list of all digital media types

2.     Look at a [school] photo posted. Did all the children want to be posted online? What happens if they decide when they’re grown up that they don’t like their picture?

3.     Go to bbc.co.uk/privacy/cookies/ and learn about cookies and what they are used for. Think about why cookies may not be a good idea. Write a list of good and bad things about cookies.

4.     Draw a flow of money in a physical media transaction, and then of a digital media transaction. How does this flow change if media is shared?

5.     Find examples of things that have a copyright disclaimer.

6.     Buy some digital content legally: decide whether to download new DM album from 7digital, amazon or iTunes.

7.     Critical evaluation - How many different ways can one pay for content? Why is it important to pay for content? Why might people not pay for content?

The conclusions I was aiming at were that: she needs to be critical in how she shares information online; that there is a whole value chain that relies on consumer purchases; and that there’s more than one value chain.  I don’t think I succeeded in the last point, because we didn’t have time to discuss advertisements properly. We also didn’t really examine the grey area of copyright: fair use. These last two points get quite sophisticated quickly, and I think are above KS2 ability level. However, it’s because they are still areas of debate for even knowledgeable commentators, that they are still important concepts to introduce.

More in this series: part 1, part 3.

Home Schooling ICT, part 1: e-Safety.

My eldest aske me to give her lessons about ICT (Information, Computing and Technology) because she wanted to take her school lessons further. So I developed a 10 week course that covered the topics that she wanted, and the topics that I thought were important: e-Safety, Office Apps, Researching on the Internet, and using her Raspberry Pi. It’s been a really interesting learning experience for me: which topics to choose, how to pitch the topics to the right age and ability, how to deliver the topics to be engaging. I’m going to post how each lesson went.

Lesson 1: Staying safe on the Internet

Objectives:

·       Identifying safe and unsafe behaviours

·       Playing nicely online

·       Understand what to do if unsure

1.     List of 5 favourite online activities

2.     http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/5_7/

3.     Follow links, read and discuss

4.     Watch a cartoon from Hector’s World

5.     Search for <me> online. Follow the links, and write down all that you can find out about me.

6.     Critical evaluation - have I been safe online?

My approach was to highlight how her online behavoiurs could be easily misinterpreted because there are no contextual cues. And these contextual cues help to identify undesirable people and their undesirable behaviours. The analogy I used was the school playground – a behaviour that would be mean in the playground would also be mean online.

My eldest told me that her school had already played some of the “Hector’s World” videos, so these topics were familiar to her. The task to search for me online was quite surprising – apparently I may have a criminal record in the US! But it nicely highlighted that relying on the Internet was itself an unsafe behaviour (more on that in a subsequent lesson).

She was more engaged when the activity needed her to click or type or write, rather than reading  or watching or listening. Her attention span also dropped to almost completely distracted just before the hour mark – must make sure I pace the lessons carefully.

I think she enjoyed the lesson, and I certainly enjoyed giving it. We’re both looking forward to next week.

More in this series: part 2.

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