UP2US – Lesson 6: Two sides of the internet
This lesson encourages students to think about the positive and negative sides of the internet. The concerns articulated should provide the basis for developing and refining the school’s internet safety
guidelines and bullying policy.
- +Curriculum Links
- Junior Cycle SPHE Short Course Strand 3:
Anti-bullying: Discuss the school’s anti-bullying policy and internet-safety guidelines in terms of their implications for their own behaviour and personal safety; develop guidelines for promoting an inclusive environment. - +Resources and Methodologies
- Resources: Magazines and newspapers, A3 Paper, Pritt Stick, Scissors, Copies of Worksheet 6.1
- Methodologies: Survey, Collating results, Collage, Feedback to group
- +Learning Outcomes
- Learning outcomes:
- Students will be able to list their concerns about the internet.
- Students will have expressed their attitudes towards the internet through collage and through a survey on best uses of the internet.
- +Key Skills
- Staying well, Communicating, Being creative, Working with others, Managing information and thinking, Numeracy
- +Activity 6.1 – What online bullying and bystanding look like (10 minutes)
- STEP 1: Have students imagine that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, where anarchy rules. It is up to them to devise rules for the internet.
- STEP 2: They should each come up with three positive aspects of the internet that they’d want to protect and three negative aspects that concern them.
- STEP 3: Having completed this task individually, students should then discuss their lists with the whole class.
- +Activity 6.2 – The two sides of the internet by pictures and numbers (20 minutes)
- STEP 1: The students should be split into groups according to their interests. Students who enjoy art and creativity should work in groups to make collages using clippings from magazines. The collages should describe the two sides of the internet: the positive and the negative. Students should be ready to present their artwork to their classmates at the start of the next class.Meanwhile, students who have a greater interest in maths and science should design and administer the survey on Worksheet 6.1 to the rest of the class to get some statistics on the students’ use of the internet. Students should feel free to tailor responses and classes to meet the needs of the class. Having gathered this information, they should then collate it and be ready to present the findings to the rest of the class the next day.While all students in the survey group can be involved in writing the survey, a smaller group should be in charge of collecting responses. The rest of the group should then work on collating responses and representing the findings on charts. Surveys can be administered orally or in written form.The activities in this lesson should help students consider what features of the internet are important to them and what features need to be used with particular care. This exploration should allow students to make considered contributions when analysing and refining school policies in the next lessons.