Digital Citizenship Lesson #2: Online Ethics: Cruelty & Cyberbullying

#2 Digital Citizenship Lesson :

Online Ethics, Online Cruelty and Cyberbullying   

Learning Targets:  Students will be able to :

• Identify Online Cruelty and reflect on the factors that intensify online cruelty
• Identify what targets and upstanders can do when online cruelty occurs
• Recognize their own role in escalating or de-escalating online cruelty

Essential Question: What factors intensify online cruelty/cyberbullying and what can you do to lessen them?

Lesson Overview: Students define online ethics and why online relationships require the same or more consciousness as face to face ones.   Students then review situations of online cruelty and identify opportunities for being upstanders or deescalating. Students reflect on own experience with online cruelty.

Step 1) Ask-1. What are ways that people connect and communicate with each other through digital media?   2.What are some of the ways that online relationships are different than in-person relationships?

Online relationships	In-person relationships
Easier for friends to say mean things Connect to far away friends Easier to remove all contact Easier to give more info about you Hard to be sarcastic-no body language Have anonymity Easy to lie Easy to be misunderstood You can have hundreds You can edit what you say	Tone/body language can help be understood More emotion more intimate nsa can’t spy on you Start to face consequences right away Take advantage of face to face time because less of this Many fewer friends face to face harder to keep conversation going less back and forth You can’t take back what you say

Step 2) Define: Ethics-An ethical person is thought to treat others with respect, care, and dignity. Someone who is unethical treats others unfairly, unjustly, and irresponsibly. Cyberbullying- takes place whenever someone uses digital media tools such as the Internet and cell phones to deliberately upset or harass someone else, often repeatedly. Online ethics.  a set of principles and morals governing people’s behavior as it relates to the Internet and digital devices Digital citizenship: a safe, responsible, and ethical approach to functioning in the digital world

Step 3) Watch Video - Ricardo's Story - Making Fun of Others Online http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1UfmBD5d7I

Step 4) Discuss

*Do you think Ricardo is a cyberbully? Why or why not?
*Ricardo thinks that harassing others on Internet, rather than in person, appeals to some teenagers because they can’t be attacked back physically. What do you think?
*In pairs-Have you ever encountered online cruelty? How do you think someone might feel after being the target of it?  

Step 5) Understand key vocabulary

target: a person who is the object of an intentional action

offender: a person who has malicious intent to hurt or damage someone

bystander: a person who does nothing when they witness something happening

upstander: a person who supports and stands up for someone else

escalate: to increase or make more intense

de-escalate: to decrease or make less intense

Step 6) Watch Video- Stacy’s Story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4ugP_eQUR8

Step 7) Discuss

Who was involved in the story and what roles did they play? Who was the target? Who were the offenders? Were there bystanders and/or upstanders?

Pair Share and then Share Out What do you think you might have done if you were Stacey? What could you have done if you wanted to be an upstander in this situation?

Targets	Upstanders