Students Dig Up Dirt to Learn about Internet Safety
Students are dangerously unaware of the privacy impli- cations of social networks.
Many of my students, for example,
Yet students routinely post this
information and much more to the
web via a variety of social media
applications.
When I voice concerns about internet safety to students, their teenage
sense of invincibility keeps them from
truly comprehending the impact of an
inappropriate entry on a personal blog,
social network, or Twitter account. The
idea that such actions could adversely
affect them when applying for jobs,
running for elected office, or even trying to get a date in college seems difficult for them to imagine. To make the
learning stick, I knew I needed to connect this lesson to a real-life situation.
The question in my mind was: “How?”
Privacy vs. Security
© iStockphoto.com/ma_co
I developed a module for my Intro
to Computer Technology class that
seems to do the job well. The point
of the lesson is to teach students how
to appropriately share information
when using social media. First, we
review lesson vocabulary and watch
a 40-minute documentary called No
Place To Hide narrated by the late
news broadcaster Peter Jennings. The
video details privacy issues balanced
against collective security. I use the
film to introduce the concepts of privacy and anonymity and discuss students’ views on them.
By Jesse Morehouse
When I voice concerns
about internet safety to
students, their teenage
sense of invincibility
keeps them from truly
comprehending the
impact of an inappropriate
entry on a personal blog,
social network, or
Twitter account.
Then the real fun starts. We discuss
the idea that online data can be pieced
together to create a fairly complete
picture of an individual. This is legal
and practiced routinely by companies
marketing their products and services.
Data Mining the Teacher
Next we data mine. I begin by introducing my students to a list of useful
search tools for personal information
that I have bookmarked on Delicious.
We talk about how a data miner can
use each tool to find different things
and why those are important. I give
students 10 minutes to data mine me.
They call out possible facts as they find
them, and I write them down on the
interactive whiteboard, which allows
me to perform conceptual grouping
later in the exercise. While writing, I
do not give any indication of whether
the information is true or false.
Then, we examine the information
on the board and discuss it. Can they
draw conclusions about me? How
could they conduct more accurate
searches? I give students another 10
minutes to find out more about me.
Afterward, I select two pieces of data,
one true and one false, and we go
through the process of figuring out
how the students could determine the
validity of each.
Vetting the Facts
I understand that this lesson freaks
out some adults. But every piece of
information the students find is legally
in the public sector. It is actually quite
safe and very engaging. After all, what
