Media Balance is an important topic this year at the OJCS, and it’s one that we’ve been working on with students for many years. Students of all ages can learn and understand the lessons connected to finding a healthy balance of time online. For our younger students, I love using the book Unplugged by Steve … Continue reading Finding Media Balance at Any Age
Why Our Students Need Critical AI Literacy As a part of my professional development project this year, I signed up for a wonderful course through Library Juice Academy called AI and Libraries, for Skeptics. Though it was Keanu and dystopian futures I was envisioning, that really wasn’t what it was about. The focus of the … Continue reading From “AI Skeptic” to Algorithmic Advocate
Today our grade 4 class became Super Digital Citizens with the interactive Nearpod lesson by Common Sense Media called ‘Super Digital Citizens.’ Our students made the OJCS proud by showing what kind and compassionate upstanders they would be in the face of cyberbullying. An upstander is someone who speaks or acts in support of someone … Continue reading Grade 4 Become Super Digital Citizens
I would like to welcome back our OJCS students and families. To find out more about the library, visit the Back to School Night Videos page on my blog. What if instead of coming to the OJCS, your parents had sent you to Pirate School? In this story, we are going to find out what … Continue reading A Back to School Story – Captain Abdul’s Pirate School
I have created a new, interactive, workshop for middle schoolers in Nearpod that will explore AI history, uses, and the controversies around it. Here is a Nearpod preview. Note: The preview link will expire within 14 days. Here is a video of the slides for a quick preview of the lesson:
It is public speaking time at the OJCS, which means most grades are engaged in doing research for their speeches. The following is a lesson for our grade 7s and 8s (although it can be used across most grades) that explains how we determine if the sources we want to use for our research are … Continue reading Information Credibility – Research for Public Speaking
A middle school media literacy lesson With TikTok becoming the social media platform of choice for so many students, it is important that they learn to recognize the misinformation, hate, and propaganda on the platform. It is also critical that they become aware of some of the TikTok controversies, like the privacy issues with the … Continue reading Becoming a Critical Thinker on TikTok
An OJCS Library Workshop for Grades 4-8 This workshop has been offered to teachers both as a Nearpod lesson and in the following video format. This workshop focuses on ways to keep our online friendships healthy and happy. It also focuses on ways to deal with negative emotions that may come up, like jealousy.
Here is a slides lesson to help students understand the risks of sexting, sending nude photos and videos, and Omegle. To view the slides in full screen, click the 3 dots and hit ‘enter full screen’.
I wanted to take a moment to highlight an incredible program for our students that is available online. I have been both impressed and amazed by the work that The News Literacy Project is doing to help build critical thinking skills in students. The News Literacy Project is a non-profit and nonpartisan organization that is … Continue reading The News Literacy Project’s Checkology Program