My Media Use: A Personal Challenge

Digital Literacy and Online Safety (Y8) - Lesson 1

A note about this lesson

This lesson is taken from Common Sense Education’s excellent Digital Citizenship curriculum. Their resources are shared for free under A Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

You can find the original resources HERE.

Objectives

Make an inventory of their media choices and how those choices make them feel.
Brainstorm personal strategies for balancing media use.
Create personal guidelines for promoting healthy media balance.

Lesson Resources

Digital Literacy and Online Safety (Y8)

Lesson 1 - My Media Use: A Personal Challenge

Lesson 2 - Big Big Data

Lesson 3 - The Power of Digital Footprints

Lesson 4 - My Social Media Life

Lesson 5 - Upstanders and Allies

Lesson 6 - Copyright and Fair Dealing

Links to Education for a Connected World.

This lesson from Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum links to the following strands from the Health and well-being section of the Education for a Connected World framework.

Warm up: Taking Stock

5 mins.

Before the lesson: Ask learners to bring their backpacks to class for this lesson.

1. Pass out a blank sheet of paper to each learner and project Slide 4. Say: Without looking inside your bag or backpack, make a list of what's in it. Take 60 seconds to make the most complete list you can.

2. Prompt learners to compare the list to the reality of what's inside the backpack. How complete were the lists? Invite learners to share their responses.

Explain that making a list of items is a kind of inventory, which is a complete list of items or actions, such as property or goods, and that today's activity will include an inventory of individual media choices. (Slide 5)

3. Project Slide 6 and ask: How might an inventory of activities be different from an inventory of objects? Give partners an opportunity to respond. Invite learners to share their responses.

Possible responses:

You can't look at the way you spend your time in the same way you look inside your backpack.
It can be difficult to remember exactly how much time you spend doing things.
The way people use their time may change, so an inventory of activities is an ongoing process.

Analyse: My Media Use

20 mins.

1. Project Slide 7 and prompt learners to complete the first three columns of the My Media Choices Inventory handout. Invite volunteers to read the heading and example for each column. Explain that media choices may involve television, videos, gaming, music, texting, social media, homework and utilities such as camera and map apps. Explain that it can be hard to recall the exact time and duration of use and suggest that learners provide their best estimate. See the Teacher Version for sample answers.

2. Project Slide 8 and pass out a blank sheet of paper to each learner. Say: Media choices have many positive aspects for people, but sometimes they have negative effects too. What are some of the positive and negative effects? Write your responses on your paper and then take turns sharing with a partner.

Invite learners to share their responses. Commonly cited effects of media use include feeling:

Connected: I feel connected to my friends and community.
Smart: I learn things that are important to my life.
In the know: I get information about events and new ideas or trends.
Unique: I can express myself through my participation online.
Stressed: I feel worried or hassled. I feel pressure to constantly check my phone.
Insecure: I feel less confident or less important than other people.
Down: I feel bad because I spend too much time using media and I don't get to do other things (non-media activities like playing sports, hobbies, etc.).
Tired: I watched too much TV, gamed too much or was on my phone late and didn't get enough sleep.

3. Prompt learners to complete the fourth column of the My Media Choices Inventory handout (Part 2), writing a word or a phrase -- or drawing a face emoji -- to describe the feeling or the effect of each media choice. Begin with the example row and invite learners to share their ideas.

4. Say: An organisation called the Center for Humane Technology partnered with creators of an app that tracks screen time to learn more about how people experience the effects of digital media use. They asked 200,000 people about how certain apps made them feel based on the amount of time people used them. Take a look at this graph presenting their results. (See more information about this app, Moment, here.)

5. ProjectSlide 9 and ask: What do you notice? What stands out to you?

Call on several learners to respond. Confirm that learners understand the basic elements of the chart before drawing conclusions. Learners may say unhappy users use apps longer than happy ones, or they may call out specific apps as having longer or shorter usage times.

Invite learners to look back at the feelings they recorded in their media-inventory charts. Do they notice any patterns? Ask learners to pair-share their observations and invite a few learners to share their findings with the class.

Evaluate: Creating Healthy Media Balance

15 mins.

1. Project Slide 10 and invite a learner to read the definition of media balance aloud. Ask: What are some examples of having media balance?

Call on learners to share their thoughts. Possible responses include:

Establishing a daily routine for using favourite media (such as checking Snapchat after homework's done).
Charging the phone at night in a different room so it doesn't interfere with sleep.

2. Ask: Why is media balance important? Invite learners to share their responses. Possible responses include:

People want to enjoy the benefits of media without the negative effects.
Media can be entertaining, but too much media can interfere with other activities, such as homework, family time, sports, hobbies, sleep and other interests.
Media can connect people, but sometimes media use isolates people or creates conflict between people.

3. Project Slide 11. Explain the concept of a guideline as a set of criteria or piece of advice for how to do something. Distinguish a guideline from a rule. For example, a specific rule is "Don't interrupt when someone is talking", while a guideline could be "Show respect when having a discussion." A guideline can also be thought of as advice you might give to someone, which could apply in many situations.

4. Ask: What guidelines can you create to make sure you're balancing the benefits from the negatives of media use? Look at your Media Choices Inventory as a reference.

Invite learners to share out ideas for guidelines that could shape good choices about media use. Capture learner responses on Slide 12. Possible responses include:

Only use my device in ways that lead to positive feelings (in the moment or later).
Pay attention to friends and family by putting my device down when I'm with them.
Limit the number of things I post online to ____ per day/week.
Mute or unfollow people whose posts lead to negative feelings.
Put my phone to "bed" at night by recharging in another room.
Set timers while using certain apps so I don't lose track of time.

5. Explain that there are also apps or settings they can use to help keep media balanced. Some examples include:

iOS tracking and time-out locking tools.
Enhanced "Do Not Disturb" options.
Bedtime modes.
Google's "Wind Down" feature.
Android's "Digital Wellbeing" feature.
iPhone's "Screen Time" feature.
Specialised apps like "Moment".

Wrap-Up Exercise

15 mins.

1. Prompt learners to reexamine their lists of ideas for guidelines, tools and strategies to choose the ones they think will be most useful to them.

2. Say:Next we're going to use everything you've noticed about your own media use and map out a media-balance strategy. You will put your own ideas and priorities on paper to create a plan that works for you. Distribute the My Media-Balance Strategy handout. Show Slide 13 and direct learners to complete the handout. See the Teacher Version for sample responses.

3. Invite learners to share their personal challenges and media strategies. Encourage them to be concrete and actionable.

4. Say: It's a good idea to review our media balance from time to time. As technology changes and as our lives change, we may find we want balance in different ways. You have the power to make deliberate choices about how media affects your life.

Prompt learners to create a note in their planners or calendars to review their media balance strategies every three months.

5. Ask learners to complete the Lesson Quiz, and send them home with the Family Activity and Family Tips.

Extend the lesson

Ask learners to brainstorm features they would like to see in a screen-time tracker app, such as tracking and locking features, the ability to count phone pickups, a way to evaluate feelings, etc. You could take it one step further and have learners design a media-balance app, drawing a prototype.

Next Lesson >

Big Big Data