Journal 3 : Students Dig Up Dirt to Learn about Internet Safety

NETS-T 4

Morehouse, J. (2011). Students dig up the dirt.. (2 ed., Vol. 39, pp. 34-35). International Society for Technology in Education.Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books/feeds/volumes?q=http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-september-october-2011.aspx

In this article the author, Jesse Morehouse, teaches his students about the importance of privacy by having students dig up his own dirt, other teacher’s and even strangers.  The focus of this lesson plan is for the students to learn how to appropriately share information through their social networks.  This activity is called data mining.

When the author was data mined by his students he assigned them data mined him, the students would call out facts that had been found about their teacher as the teacher wrote them on the board. Some of the information was true and some was not.   When the stranger was data mined, the students were put in groups and assigned to find an individual who would meet the teacher’s criteria of information and the students were to create an electronic presentation with what was found about the individual stranger. In a few hours the stranger’s relatives, addresses, pictures, and much more information was found.  Finally, the author went over the students’ Facebook privacy settings and accommodated them appropriately. 

Q1:  Why is it important for students to learn about privacy implications?

It is important for students to learn about privacy implications because most cannot understand the consequences of overexposing their personal information and how easily can be accessed by a stranger if private settings are not set appropriately.  Once the privacy implications are learned students might become more cautious of what can be exposed online.

Q2:  How can this lesson benefit students?

The experience of this lesson plan benefits students by teaching them a life lasting lesson about privacy and security, encouraging to be discrete about their personal information. This lesson might prevent unfortunate events, such as identity theft, to take place.