Gaming Their Way to Good Digital Citizenship

This week and next week the library is running workshops on online safety and good digital citizenship.  The kids have been loving these workshops because the way they are learning these lessons is through an amazing Google game called 'Interland'.  This game is designed to guide students through four levels, each dealing with a particular issue.

The worlds are;

1. Mindful Mountain - Share with Care - students are asked to determine who they should share certain types of information with.
2. Reality River - Don't Fall For Fake - this game poses questions about how to protect yourself from phishing and other scams.
3. Tower of Treasure - Secure Your Secrets - this level is about protecting private information and creating secure passwords
4. Kind Kingdom - It's Cool to Be Kind - this level is about the importance of being kind online and standing against cyber bullying

The kids enjoyed the game so much they were asking to stay over recess and continue.  Our discussions before the game indicated that the children knew very little about how to protect themselves online.  But they took away so much from the game that our discussion after playing it was very rich.  I will be sharing this link with other grades and parents as I think this is a great tool for educating any student, not just the young ones.