“Surfing … Safely!”

With the project “Surfing … safely!” our intention was to raise awareness among students about  the dangers while they navigate on internet  and to give them the way to deal with them in case of an emergency.

At the end,  the students learned a lot about the internet and it’s dangers, but also they learned  to respect, trust and accept each other and also, with the help of the web 2.0 tools they became creative, interactive and energetic.

Before we got started, practical instructions were given to the students on how to search the internet properly and how to download and save files.

They were also given advice such as not to trust everything they read on the internet, that they should compare information on at least three websites, and that they should always mention their sources when writing an essay.

The students were divided into groups with the help of the Web 2.0 tool Random name picker from the “classtools” games. The process is very simple. The teacher enters the names of the students on the platform and these are automatically put in the radii of the circle by pressing the “end” button. With each spin of the wheel  a name is selected and then it disappears from the circle. Children love it and at the same time it is a transparent way of forming groups. In the same way we gave to the students the titles of the research work of each group.

In the theoretical part, the students, after collecting the information, created diagrams with the web 2.0 tool Draw.io and they did a common power point that we presented in class. Some indicative slides are those related to the concept of the internet,

The etymology of the word in Greek and English

What it consists of …

Its positives …

… and its dangers.

Next, the students played relevant quizes from a Greek page on safe internet, the safer internet for kids….

…and they made their own with the web 2.0 tool Quizlet.

After that, they browsed on Safe youtube.net…..

 and they traced their shadows on the  “Trace my shadow” platform. This is a platform that shows us the digital footprints we leave – how many, which types and from which devices. By selecting the device and services we use, we see how many traces are coming out and what we can do to control our traces.

The students created posters related to the topic with the Web 2.0 tool Postermywall. In such a way they made a visual representation of their ideas on the topic and they expressed their creativity.

There are many web 2.0 educational tools that help students understand, in a fun way, what we want to teach them. They are relatively new and we may not be very familiar with them, but they are very simple to handle and most importantly, the kids love them. Since technology has invaded our  daily lives, let us take advantage of it so the young people’s involvement with it is constructive and not dangerous!

At last let’s see a storyjumper the students created!