Toolkit – Digital & Media Literacy Education

Table of contents Preface, Virginia Careri – Project Coordinator VSAV, CESIE........................................................... 002 Introduction, Gianna Cappello – DPDS, University of Palermo .................................................. 003 Preliminary remarks ................................................................................................................................. 007 Key concepts .............................................................................................................................................. 009 How to use this guide .............................................................................................................................. 014 How to document the activities .......................................................................................................... 016 1 UNIT ONE: PARTICIPATION 1.1 Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 018 1.2 Activities ............................................................................................................................... 020 1.3 The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” ................ 038 1.4 Evaluation............................................................................................................................. 039 2 UNIT TWO: CREDIBILITY 2.1 Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 042 2.2 Activities ............................................................................................................................... 044 2.3 The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” ................ 059 2.4 Evaluation............................................................................................................................. 060 3 1. UNIT THREE: IDENTITY 3.1 Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 063 3.2 Activities ............................................................................................................................... 066 4.3 The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” ................ 099 5.4 Evaluation............................................................................................................................. 101 4 UNIT FOUR: PRIVACY 4.1 Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 083 4.2 Activities ............................................................................................................................... 086 4.3 The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” ................ 099 4.4 Evaluation............................................................................................................................. 101 5 UNIT FIVE: AUTHORSHIP AND CREATIVITY 5.1 Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 104 5.2 Activities ............................................................................................................................... 107 5.3 The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” ................ 119 5.4 Evaluation............................................................................................................................. 120 Glossary......................................................................................................................................................... 123 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 127 Sitography ................................................................................................................................................... 130 NOTES: words starred (*) are in the Glossary. Words in italics refer to a box with more detailed information. PREFACE Virginia Careri1 VSAV Project Coordinator CESIE - European Centre of Studies and Initiatives This toolkit, realized within the European Project Virtual Stages Against Violence (VSAV), represents how CESIE and the Partner organizations operate, locally and internationally, to promote cultural and educational development through the use of “non-formal “ education tools. The toolkit ofers innovative and participatory methods to support, integrate and enrich the work carried out by educational institutions such as schools. In designing the VSAV project, we intended to use educational tools that aimed primarily to an active acquisition of skills and not just an acquisition of knowledge. We chose to talk about young people with young people, to address the issue of new media through the media themselves, to approach traditional tools of communication, such as theater, to those ofered by the latestgeneration network, as Internet. We therefore made use, as educational tool, of the object itself that we intended to investigate, in order to disseminate the key message of the entire VSAV project: any object can be considered a dangerous weapon or an useful instrument, depending on the knowledge and awareness that we have while using it. The toolkit, according to the way of intervention tackled by CESIE and the other Partner organizations, is therefore a valuable complement to develop educational activities, that is raised more efective as being part of a creative, interactive and transversal learning experience. 1 -Virginia Careri is expert in management and coordination of projects at the organization CESIE – Center of European Studies and initiatives – Department of European and International Cooperation. She also managed and directed actions of humanitarian aid abroad, in contexts of emergency and programs focused on educational, cultural and socio-economic development. 002 INTRODUCTION Gianna Cappello2 Department of Politics, Low and Society (DPDS) University of Palermo THE PROJECT AT A GLANCE This toolkit is part of the European Project Virtual Stages Against Violence (VSAV), funded by the Daphne III Programme of the European Commission3. VSAV is a two-year project involving four European countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Romania. Its general aim is to address the risks and the opportunities young people encounter when using digital media and online communication, ofering them the cognitive and creative tools to properly use them and beneit from their positive potential for their growth and active participation in the public sphere. 2 - Gianna Cappello is Assistant Professor at the University of Palermo where she teaches New Media Sociology (with a focus on Videogame Studies) and Education Sociology (with a focus on Media Education), at both graduate and undergraduate level. She is co-founder and current President of MED, the Italian Association for Media Education and co-director of MED’s Journal “Media Education. Studi, Ricerche, Buone Pratiche” (Erickson, Trento). She is member of the Research Committee on Sociology of Leisure (RC13) of ISA (International Sociological Association). She is currently doing research on the relationship between children and videogames as well as on the sociological implications of Media Education. 3 - All materials and activities developed during the project are available at the VSAV website: http://virtualstages.eu/ 003 SEVERAL ACTIVITIES HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT: 1. A RESEARCH (across the four partner countries) whose main objective was to identify the Internet uses and behaviors – both in terms of opportunities and risks – of a non-representative sample of European adolescents4. Another important sub-objective was to take into consideration the role parents play within the family in supervising/controlling the online activities of their children. Finally, as a complement to this educational framework, a group of teachers was surveyed too, in order to identify their private and professional Internet uses, as well as their ideas about the introduction of media literacy activities in their classrooms. 2. An ONLINE GAME – The Big Brain- helping students work through the dangers and beneits of the Internet in a playful manner. Players are asked to choose and play among six diferent game environments that represent six diferent speciic topics related to new technologies and web threats (viruses, spam, false identities, bad companies, bullies and phishers). The game also ofers educational activities that are further developed in this toolkit. The Big Brain, winner of the Comenius Edumedia Award http://www.comenius-award.de/, can be played from the project website (http://www.virtualstages.eu/bigbrain/). 3. A THEATRE PLAY, ofering 5 diferent representations, within the 4 partner countries, of the same idea: the legends of classical Greek culture help us understanding the threats of the present. The key to interpretation of these plays must be found in the inner sense of this metaphor: the improper use of new technologies may be seen like a modern “Trojan horse” that deceptively afects human life and social relationships. This toolkit contains the DVD of the 5 Theater plays, that can be viewed in class and become a useful base for debates or other pedagogical activities. 4. This TOOLKIT, aimed at teachers and educators, contains ive units with a series of educational activities about the topics and problems already dealt with in both the online game and the theatre plays. As the whole project does, these activities aim at developing an increased awareness among young people of both the risks and opportunities of digital media and online communication. 4 - The sample included 377 adolescents (14-16 years old), 528 parents, 179 teachers. 004 Virtual Stages Against Violence: A EUROPEAN PROJECT OF MEDIA LITERACY This project can be framed within the conceptual and methodological horizon of media literacy. The European Union has been increasingly supporting, over the last decades, the development of media literacy in member States. As deined in the very recent Commission Recommendation on media literacy in the digital environment for a more competitive audiovisual and content industry and an inclusive knowledge society (2009), Media literacy relates to the ability to access the media, to understand and critically evaluate diferent aspects of the media and media content and to create communications in a variety of contexts… [It is] is a matter of inclusion and citizenship in today’s information society. It is a fundamental skill not only for young people but also for adults and elderly people, parents, teachers and media professionals. Thanks to the Internet and digital technology, an increasing number of Europeans can now create and disseminate images, information and content… Media literacy should be addressed in diferent ways at diferent levels. The modalities of inclusion of media literacy in school curricula at all levels are the Member States’ primary responsibility. The role played by local authorities is also very important since they are close to the citizens and support initiatives in the nonformal education sector. Civil society should also make an active contribution to promoting media literacy in a bottom-up manner5. In order to include media literacy in school curricula, as requested in the Recommendation, we need to redeine the ways in which media have been usually used in schools. Indeed, it is not a question of simply teaching technical skills (how to use a word processor, make a video, send an e-mail, create a webpage or navigate the web) but also more general cultural-critical-creative abilities so that students can grasp the social implications and functions of the media, and interact with them in the most selfrelexive and responsible way. In other words, it is not simply a question of educating with the media (media as teaching aids), but also to the media (media as an object of critical study and creative use). If we do not adopt this broader perspective, we run the risk of promoting a merely instrumental vision of the media in the classroom, that does not require to teachers and students to build a deeper knowledge of the media 5 - The Recommendation is available, in various languages, at http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/recommendation/index_en.htm 005 and of the complex relationships that people establish with them in their everyday life (especially youth). As many studies have shown, the advent of digital media is producing important transformations in people’s everyday life, both at the socio-cultural and psycho-cognitive level. First of all, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have increased people’s access to information through sophisticated systems of data storage (CDs, DVDs, I-pods, etc.) and circulation (Internet and Intranets). Secondly, they have de-materialized spatial-temporal boundaries, blurring the distinctions in social roles and situations, hence creating new forms of mediated relationships and communication. Thirdly, expanding Marshall McLuhan’s intuition about the “global village” (1964), they have accelerated the globalization process: ICTs have made the world more interdependent than ever, increasing the free circulation of products and inances, and also ideas and cultures. These transformations, however, are not positive in and of themselves. The access to information, for example, has created new forms of exclusion, poverty and disenfranchisement (the so-called digital divide) that exacerbate older forms of inequality; it has also led to an overload of information so that people are less and less capable to metabolize and verify in its reliability. Similarly, the new virtual forms of sociality and communication have exasperated certain social problems (i.e. cyber bullying, self-isolation, video voyeurism, lack of privacy, etc.). Precisely because the media are playing an important role in people’s (and especially youth’s) everyday life, media literacy educators have changed their approach: from a protectionist one to a dialogical one, more interested in understanding (rather than stigmatizing) the multiple ways in which young people adopt, use and interpret the media in their everyday life. Educators have come to recognize that protectionism does not work in the classroom: condemning the media inevitably clashes with the cultures and preferences of their students. According to this new approach they can no longer assume that the media are necessarily harmful, or that young people are simply passive victims of media inluence. Instead, they aim at developing a more aware style of teaching and learning, in which students can relect on their own activity both as “readers” and “writers” of media texts, and understand the broader social and economic factors in play. 006 PRELIMINARY REMARKS In the majority of the industrialized countries, the Internet has entered by now in everyday life for many of us: from the purchase of a train ticket to the consultation of a bibliographical catalogue, the Net is becoming an “invisible technology”. Besides, the growth of the Internet at home and school has generated the rising of a particular group of users – children and teenagers – for whom the domestic and school environment constitute the preferred places where they can be online (Livingstone, 2009). At the same time, there is an increase in debates, both in the academic and political ield, about the role that the educational agencies, from school to family, should play towards the new generations and to their relations with the Internet and the electronic media. With regards to this issue, positions are often opposite, just like it happened in the past with other media, for example television and computers. On the one side, there are those whom Eco (1964) deined as “apocalyptical”: they think that new technologies are negative in themselves, so they concentrate on the risks that the young people – seen as vulnerable and passive – are exposed to. An example of this irst perspective can be found in the classic volume by Neil Postman (1983), The Disappearance of Childhood, where the author sees television as a medium that is fundamentally irrational with a negative impact on the youngest ones. Yesterday TV, today videogames: according to the technophobic critics, they are responsible for transmitting violent behaviour, they transmit models of negative and socially undesirable behaviour that children adopt as a form of imitation. Computers, Internet and the new social networks produce de-socialization phenomena, destroying the normal human relationships and the concept of family as well. The exposure to inadequate contents becomes more uncontrollable than ever because on the Internet ilters are extremely restricted. From this point of view, Internet brings to extreme consequences that process of “revealing” of the adult world started by television. 007 On the other side there are the so-called “integrated” (Eco, 1964): they attribute to media technologies an inherently positive role and the emphasis is moved towards the delay of the educational agencies in catching up with change and adapting themselves to the new demands of the digital era. Young people are seen as pioneers of the new media languages. New mythologies arise, supported by a deinitely optimistic vision of the new technologies and their potential in the educational ield (Buckingham, 2007). Today, amongst the techno-enthusiastic we ind authors such as Marc Prensky (2001 and 2009) and Don Tapscott (1998 and 2009), who claim two main arguments. Firstly, they believe in the rising of a generation provided with new cognitive abilities and thanks to the intensive use of digital media. Secondly, they believe that this radical transformation of the cognitive styles and of the social practices of the new generations are producing a signiicant gap between young people and the educational agencies; the latter should radically change to answer to new cognitive styles and satisfy new emerging needs. This toolkit moves from a perspective which goes beyond these two opposite visions. In line with recent developments in the ield of Media Education, which is today more oriented towards empowerment than towards protection (Hobbs, 2010; Parola and Ranieri, 2010), and considering recent studies on digital literacy (Calvani et al., 2012; Perez Tornero and Varis, 2010), it is suggested to look at the Internet taking into consideration its risks as well as its opportunities to identify a place for the pedagogical mediation that is both full of challenges and essential for a conscious, critical and creative use of the Internet. From this point of view, the toolkit identiies some important areas of intervention and proposes ive units articulated in several activities and supplied with a series of resources that the teacher can use in the classroom with the students. The aim is to ofer teachers and educators self-directed tools that can be easily employed in everyday teaching. 008 KEY CONCEPTS There are many issues to consider if we think about the risks and the opportunities of the Internet and the new digital media. To explain it easily, we propose to divide them into ive key issues derived from the work of James et al. (2009) and carried out within the GoodPlay Project: participation, credibility, identity, privacy, authorship and creativity. Each of these themes will be handled by looking at both the positive and the negative aspects. Let’s analyse them in a more speciic way. Participation When we talk about participation, we are talking about the roles that a person can play in a speciic community or, more generally, in society, and about the related responsibility that this implies (James et al., 2009). Participation may take diferent shapes, from discussing in a web forum to creating content in a wiki, from sharing useful resources to using information in every ield of life – education, politics, economy, society. Indeed, a lot of beneits can derive from participation: at the individual level (development of competences, empowerment, exposure to diferent points of view), at the community level (the richness of diferent points of view and sharing of information), and at the social level (civic involvement and democratic participation). According to Jenkins (2010), who talks about digital technologies and «participative cultures», the participation in projects that deal with the collaborative construction of knowledge can ofer young people the opportunity to develop new abilities for the exercise of full citizenship and even for professional life. For example, the online sharing of a work in progress through a wiki created by the class can contribute to the development of peer critiquing abilities and encourage the adoption of speciic roles, thus allowing an increase in consciousness about the responsibilities deriving from them. The communicative tools of the Internet can ofer young people opportunities to undertake participative roles 009 with positive implications on the development of their overall abilities (empowerment): a teenager can create and moderate a group of discussion on a ilm, can contribute to the creation of a group netiquette or help schoolmates with technical diiculties. In addition, the opportunities of participation ofered by the Internet can support young people in the political and social action (Bennett, 2007), thus promoting new forms of civic engagement (Pettingill, 2007). However, there are some risks, too. They mainly derive from the possibility of acting or being object of aggressive behaviour. The condition of anonymity allowed by the Internet, as a matter of fact, can bring to phenomena of de-responsibility (Reid, 1995) that are translated into violent language (hate language), trolling*, cyber-bullying*. For example, amongst the inappropriate and harmful behaviours, it is possible to include actions that go from laming (that is sending violent and vulgar messages through email, chat or social networks) to the publication of videos on YouTube that show actions of violence done by children to other children. It is thus necessary to educate teenagers in adopting aware and responsible communicative behaviours that respect themselves and others. Credibility The development of digital technologies has ofered the opportunity to have access to a wide range of information sources and to participate in the exchanges of rich and motivated intellectual experiences. This certainly constitutes one of the main beneits of digital media. However, at the same time, new problems are arising, mainly connected to the credibility and reliability of information sources. As a matter of fact, everybody can publish any kind of information or content on the Internet. Preventive quality controls, ofering a warranty about the reliability of information, are missing as well as common standards about online publication of information which can be easily changed, modiied and plagiarized. In addition, the convergence of information and media channels can inluence people’s judgments about credibility, confusing the user at diferent levels: for example, think about the «levelling efect» (Burbules, 1998), that is the lattening of the information value caused by search engines that present the results of the interrogation on the same page, putting together commercial and non-commercial websites, institutional and private websites. There are also websites that intentionally spread false, incorrect, misleading information, often for ideological or commercial reasons (Mintz, 2002). The phenomenon of Web deception can produce serious consequences for health, for example when information refers to the use of some medicines with the 010 purpose of advertising a certain product. Young people, being «great consumers» of digital information, are the most exposed to the negative consequences of the Internet uncertain information, both because their perception of the risk can be inferior compared to adults, and because their cognitive and emotional development is less mature. This requires educational actions strongly oriented towards the development of critical thinking. Identity Adolescence is a particularly delicate phase of life as far as the theme of identity is concerned. It is the period when the subject, who just came out of childhood, starts thinking about himself or herself and deine his or her character. The Internet can ofer young people new opportunities to experience their own subjectivity, new scenarios to explore their personal identity, to self-express and get to know themselves (Turkle, 1997). As a matter of fact, the possibility to talk about themselves under conditions of anonymity (or partial anonymity) transforms the online places in narrative spaces where teens can explore their own identities “without risks”, work on personal problems or even «act out» their unresolved conlicts (Bradley, 2005). The virtual games enabled by 3D environments, like Second Life, allow teens to experiment new behaviours, and hence to relect on the diference between the Real self and the Ideal self, putting oneself in somebody’s else shoes. At the same time, there can also be some risks (see, for example, Buckingham, 2008, and the most recent work by Turkle, 2011). In the relationships with other people, the game of identity can easily move towards deceit or induce the adoption of dangerous identities: for example, a person can publish somebody else’s work on his/her website or pretend to be an expert in a community (James et al., 2008). More dangers for the self and, more indirectly, for the others can also derive from the fact that the multi-plicity of the self experienced online can be turned into fragmentation, self-relection can be transformed into forms of narcissism and egocentrism, the attention to the positive feedback of the people with whom they are connected can become a sort of addiction from others’ opinion. For this reason, as for the previous key issue, it is important to support the new generations in the knowledge of digital media, trying to promote the harmonious development of their own personality. 011 Privacy The new communication technologies, from blogs to wikis and social networks, allow to publicly share personal information and this raises new and urgent issues about privacy, safety and sensitive data (James et al., 2008): what does the online management of personal information imply? How much personal information should be considered as acceptable when sharing in the public space of the Internet? Are the teenagers who share their life experience online adopting the adequate measures to protect their identity? And are these measures suicient? When an accidentally selected person reads the public information published by a teenager on his/her blog or on a Facebook page, who makes the mistake? The curious reader or the unaware teenager? What can be the long-term consequences of the public sharing of personal data for a person? Even though there are many criticisms, a lot of young people share personal information with ease and without speciic measures on websites and social networks that are accessible to a wide public, such as LiveJournal or Facebook. In addition to the problem of exposing sensitive personal data, there is the one of identifying personal information for commercial uses. As a matter of fact, web marketing strategies are based on the possibility of knowing and drawing a precise proile of the user through the tracking of his/her actions and using the users as generators and promoters of advertising contents (Fielder et al., 2007; DCSF, 2009). For an aware and safe use of the new media, in particular of the Internet, it is thus necessary to help people managing the electronically shared information in a selective and appropriate way. Authorship and creativity Instruments for online publishing and sharing are increasingly becoming easy to use. From blogs to wikis, from podcasting to YouTube, they have extended the user’s opportunities to create contents, even in cooperation with other people. The Web 2.0 promotes participation to activities of «co-creation» (Jenkins et al., 2006), thus allowing the passage from a passive use to a proactive production of multimedia contents like music, video, and audio (Floridi and Sanders, 2005). In this case, web users of the recent generation are called prosumers, that is producers and consumers at the same time. On a conceptual level, the diferent working modality of the techno-communicative device is contributing to demystify concepts of intellectual authorship and creativity, 012 thus soliciting the user to self-perceive him/herself as potential author-protagonist of a collective project of a wider relevance. New forms of copyright are rising (for example, the Creative Commons licenses), inspired to the principles of sharing and openess of the Open Source movement (Stallman, 2003; Himanen, 2001). But new problems are rising, too. The new digital media allow an easy online creation, manipulation, publishing, and sharing of contents (O’Reilly, 2005). Activities such as «cut and paste» are practiced everyday by thousands of teenagers, without any creative transformation. Besides, practices such as illegal ile sharing and downloading are rising new issues, that cannot easily be solved unless careful educational actions are taken. 013 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE This toolkit includes ive units dedicated to the key issues presented in the previous paragraph. Every unit ofers an introductory part, where objectives and rationale are explained, as well as the structure and the prerequisite of the unit; three structured activities, that teachers can choose to use in full or partially; a section dedicated to assessment and evaluation. As for the activities, they usually contain the following elements: A) A description of the objectives; B) A close examination – addressed to the teacher – about a key word/concept; C) The instructions for the teacher; D) A section “Materials”, including tools, grids, scenarios that can be directly used by students for the implementation of the activity. Each unit ends with a section called “Learning on the game, learning through the game”, where a inal activity based on the online game “Big Brain” is proposed. Unlike other activities, this one is designed to be directly played by the students, even if it is supported by a brief introduction for the teacher. Considering the nature of the themes dealt with in the toolkit, the evaluation section mainly ofers tools to stimulate self-evaluation from students, aiming at building an individual portfolio that contains both the students’ structured relections and the teacher’s observations and feedback. This guide is also accompanied by a DVD containing the 5 theater plays realized by the 4 project partners of VSAV, based on a common theater script. The shows, available in national language and subtitled in English, provide an additional cue for teachers, addressing the issue of new technology through the use of metaphors and innova014 tive interpretations of classical tradition. We recommend viewing the show with the students and consider it as a transversal activity within the 5 units proposed, to be followed up with additional educational activities freely chosen by the teacher, such as: “Circle time” with the teacher or in working groups; “Theme” to play in classroom or at home on a speciic issue addressed; “Role Playing” inspired by one or more parts of the show. 015 HOW TO DOCUMENT ACTIVITIES A good documentation of educational activities is an essential element for professional growth and for the improvement of teaching practices. It is a starting point to think with detachment about one’s own experience and share with colleagues or experts the outcomes of the activities. The documentation form provided below should be used by the teacher to assess the teaching/learning process and make a inal synthetic evaluation. It can be used to document the unit as a whole or the single activities. It is also suggested to enclose documents such as photos, videos, works from the students and any other type of document that shows what was accomplished during the activities. 016 DOCUMENTATION FORM NAME OF THE TEACHER Specify NAME OF THE SCHOOL AND OF THE COUNTRY DATE AND TIME STUDENTS’ AGE NUMBER OF STUDENTS TEACHING/LEARNING ACTIVITIES LEARNING SITUATION THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE GOALS STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT MAIN CRITICAL POINTS OVERALL JUDGMENT AND “LESSON LEARNT” TEACHER’S SUGGESTIONS OTHER (IF NECESSARY) ATTACHMENTS Specify Specify Specify Specify Describe the main teaching/learning activities during the diferent stages of the unit (pre-work/work/post-work). To what extent did they relect the initial plan? Describe the most relevant learning episodes occurred during the activity and explain why they were relevant taking into account the planned objectives of the unit Do you think that the objectives of the unit were achieved? If so, to what extent? If no or just in some parts, why? Have students showed any interest towards the media issues treated? If so, to what extent? Did students participate in the activities? Specify if students’ participation was high, low or normal. If possible, describe a very meaningful episode about students’ participation showing their interest towards the media issue treated during the activities. Describe the positive and negative elements about the management of the class, the rules, the routines, the procedures, the rhythm of the activities, the moments of transition. Can you give some examples, focusing on the role played by the media? Describe the main critical points of the activities. How were they handled? Describe your general impressions on the experience. What lesson did you learn? Do you have any suggestion on how to improve the activity? Add other observations, if necessary Photos, videos, student’s works, website, etc. 017 UNIT ONE: PARTICIPATION 1.1 AIMS The capacity to participate in a constructive and conscious way in online communities and virtual networks is a fundamental prerequisite to participate in an active way in the so-called “knowledge and information society”. The difusion of new media and web 2.0* instruments allows the growth of new opportunities for civic and social participation (e-engagement*, e-inclusion*), requiring adequate communicative and sociorelational skills. How do people act in these communities? What rules are followed? What responsibilities do the subjects that participate have? At the same time, the majority of the world population is still excluded from the possibility to take part in the digital circuits and take advantage of their beneits (e-exclusion*). What are the countries and the social groups excluded? What consequences for people does the exclusion from electronic webs have? This unit has the double aim of promoting the students’ awareness with regard to the digital divide problem and the relative consequences, and of promoting adequate behaviour when interacting with others, in particular in the context of digital communication. In brief, the unit encourages the students’ development of the following knowledge and skills/abilities: • Understanding of the concept of digital divide • Understanding of the concept of online/oline community • Communicative and socio-relational skills • Debating and transaction skills • Analysis, evaluation and synthesis skills 018 STRUCTURE, PREREQUISITES AND TOOLS The unit is articulated into three activities, the irst one is dedicated to the concepts of e-inclusion/e-exclusion; the second one to the analysis of online communicative interactions and to the construction of shared rules (netiquette*); the third one to the collaborative construction of a participative journal. These three activities altogether try to cover the diferent facets of the concept of online participation, considering both the problematic implications and the opportunities. The teacher can decide whether to use them all or just one or two of them. The irst two activities can require one or two lessons. The third activity is more articulated and requires at least three lessons. Students are required to be able to use the browser, the search engines and a word processing software. At least 1 PC every 2 students and the Internet connection are necessary. The availability in the classroom of the interactive whiteboard can facilitate activities of shared relection about the online sources taken into consideration. UNIT OVERVIEW Short description Keywords Target Duration Prerequisites TITLE: PARTICIPATION The unit suggests three activities that aim to develop knowledge about the ethical/ social implications of Internet growth and to develop an active and responsible participation in sharing and creating online activities Participation, online community, blog, forum, computer mediated communication, netiquette, digital divide, e-inclusion/e-exclusion Students aged 14-16 and older Total duration: 17 hours Activity A: “All included!”: approximately 4 hours Activity B: “Sharing a Netiquette”: approximately 4 hours Activity C: “The WikiJournal”: approximately 8 hours The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game” : homework and 30 min. class discussion Evaluation: 30 min Being able to use a browser and writing/multimedia presentation software 019 Modality Activity A: “All included!”: in pairs Activity B: “Sharing a Netiquette”: group work Activity C: “The WikiJournal”: group work The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: individual work Evaluation: individual work Materials and tools At least 1 PC every 2 students; Internet connection; board; paper and pen Software Activity A: “All included!”: software to create a timeline (for example Whenintime: http://whenintime.com or DIpity: http://www.dipity.com) and a software for multimedia presentations (Powerpoint) Activity B: “Sharing a Netiquette”: no speciic software is needed Activity C: “The WikiJournal”: software for wiki (for example MediaWiki: www.mediawiki.org, or Wikispaces: www.wikispaces.com or PBworks: pbworks. com) or blog (for example Blogger: www.blogger.com, or WordPress: wordpress.org) The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: online Game 1.2 ACTIVITIES Activity A ALL INCLUDED! AIM The aim of this activity is to stimulate the students to think about the ethical and social consequences of the so-called digital divide*. Students are asked to create a comparative timeline about the development of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) starting from the 70s, taking into consideration the world situation and two other countries (one’s own and one chosen amongst developing nations). At the end of the activity they need to show their work to the classroom and think about the possible consequences of the detected gaps. DIGITAL DIVIDE In general, the digital divide indicates the gap that exists between those who have access to technologies and those who don’t. We can distinguish among three main meanings of the “digital divide” concept: 020 • Digital divide as a technological gap: it is an approach that has characterized the irst studies about the problem; in this case, the accent is put on technological equipment and the digital gap is interpreted as a type of exclusion for those who still don’t have access to the ICT; • Digital divide as a technological and social gap: it is a more articulated perspective that moves the attention from the mere access to digital media to the real uses of them. From this point of view, the digital gap appears as a consequence of previous inequalities and refers to the split between those who use the ICTs and those who don’t use them; • Digital divide as a disparity in the access to content: a third perspective highlights the content (knowledge and information) and the services that ICTs allow to have access to and use. Independently from technologies, what really counts here is the division between those who have access to these contents and services and those who don’t have access. A deinition that includes and summarizes these diferent elements is suggested by the OECD, according to which the digital divide indicates “the gap amongst people, organizations, companies, geographical areas in many diferent socioeconomic levels with regard to their opportunities of access to ICTs and to the use of Internet for a wide range of activities. The digital divide shows many differences among countries and inside countries. People and companies’ ability to proit from Internet changes in a signiicant way among the countries that belong to the OECD area and those that don’t belong to it “OECD”, 2001. To summarize, the concept of digital gap is applied at a universal level, it refers to many geographical dimensions (international and intra-national), it includes two diferent problems, the access to and the use of ICTs, and it is a phenomenon inluenced by the access to telecommunication facilities and infrastructures. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the ownership and the use of technologies by the students, asking questions such as: • Do you use the computer or the Internet in your spare time? How long have you been using them? • Do you use your mobile or other types of technologies in your spare time? How long have you been using them? 021 • Do you remember any episode about the use of technologies that has been important for your personal experience? While asking these questions, the teacher needs to pay great attention to the possible diferences amongst the students: some could be more privileged and this could cause distress within the group. 2. Work After this brief historical-autobiographical survey about the use of technologies, students are asked to create a timeline about the development of ICTs from the 70s on. In particular, they are asked to highlight the most important innovations at a global and national level in order to compare them. In addition, students will need to take into consideration not only the world context, but also the development and difusion of ICTs in their own countries and in another country chosen amongst the so-called developing nations. The teacher introduces the activity, showing some examples of timeline (see Annex 1), and indicates some websites that they can consult to research about the past and recent history of the ICT in the world. As for the historical aspects, it is suggested to start from the following websites: Wikipedia: history of communication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_communication history of radio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio television: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television history of computer science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science Internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet history of mobile phones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones Of course teachers can suggest other websites if they think so. They can look for other sources such as paper encyclopaedias, handbooks, monographs, etc. 022 As for the information about the difusion of ICTs in the world, the most reliable and updated website with many references is the one of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): http://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx. Timelines can be handwritten or created with a simple software for presentation (Powerpoint). Once the timeline is made, students will have to analyze and compare the diferent levels of difusion both at historical and geographical level, and include their inal observations in a conclusive document. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each pair of students shows the results of their work. The teacher write down on the blackboard the most important information that comes from presentations. At the end of all presentations, the teacher invites the students to think about the consequences of the emerging gaps with What if questions: • What would have happened in our country if…? • What would have happened in your family if…? • What would have happened in your life if…? The teacher ends the activities stressing how the digital divide can create new types of exclusion with a negative impact on the real participation of citizens in the information society. It is also important to keep in mind the diferent school situations, showing the existing divide in the educational ofer. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Examples of timeline A timeline is, literally, a “line of time” and through it a group of events is shown in chronological order. It can be made in many ways, using only paper and pens, or a common software for multimedia presentations or a more speciic one designed to make interactive and multimedia timelines. This is an example of a timeline made with a simple software for multimedia presentations; it presents two events of ICTs history, comparing the world situation with the one of two other countries. 023 In the world In Egypt In Italy This is, instead, a type of interactive timeline created with a free web-based application. This software allows to create, display, explore, share and contribute to the production of interactive timelines. In addition to the aspects connected to interactivity and multimediality, it is interesting to note that there exists a community of users whose members share products and cooperate in the production of timelines. URL: http://whenintime.com Source: http://whenintime.com/tl/rhodenk/Multimedia_2bHistory_2bTimeline/ 024 As an alternative, you can also use Dipity: http://www.dipity.com/ Activity B SHARING A NETIQUETTE AIM The aim of this activity is to help students think about the critical aspects of computer-mediated communication (laming*, spamming*, lurking*, etc.), as well as the responsibilities that a person has towards other persons and the community to which he/she belongs to when interacting online. As a start, students will have to analyze and evaluate some typical critical situations and then build a Netiquette, that is a set of rules for good online communication and interaction. COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION (CMC) This expression indicates every form of communication made possible by the mediation of computers. At the same time, it brings back to a speciic area of studies, established during the 80s-90s, including scholars from diferent disciplinary ields in the study of mediated communication forms. What are the main characteristics of CMC and what is the diference between CMC and “face-to-face” communication? The following characterizing factors can be identiied: • The reduction of spatial-temporal constraints with the possibility of both synchronous and a synchronous communication; • The possibility of multi-directional interactions: from one to one (for example e-mails), one to many (for example video-streaming), many to many (for example web forums), that pave the way to the construction 025 of online communities; • Text and multimedia: to date, the use of written texts in CMC still prevails on a semiological level, however CMC is moving progressively towards the inclusion of multimedia elements (for example podcasting, video-blogging, etc.); • The absence of non-verbal elements: because of the absence of physical presence, CMC lacks – or at least is poor – of para- and extra-linguistics elements, proxemics or kinesics; • Social-relational uncertainty: CMC occurs in a situation of social-relational uncertainty; • The sense of belonging: the emerging of a new sense of belonging which is no more connected to physical presence and territoriality, but to the sharing of interests and common aims. Amongst the undesirable efects of CMC associated to the possibility of interaction in an anonymous way, it is possible to include the following: • laming: ofensive messages are sent; • spamming: unwanted messages are sent; • lurking: it refers to the practice of those who, for example, join a web forum, but rarely, or never, participate in the discussion, preferring to read other people’s messages. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start, the teacher introduces the activity suggesting the students three scenarios characterized by critical communicative exchanges and interactions. Students will have to analyze them and express their own evaluation, explaining it. The work is carried out in pairs and lasts 30 minutes. Each pair of students will be provided with the three scenarios as well as an analysis and evaluation grid (Annex 1). At the end, students show their work to the class and the teacher solicits the students to think, asking questions such as: • Why do you judge x’s behaviour positively? • Why do you judge x’s behaviour negatively? • What would you have done if you were x? • How could this type of situation be solved? 026 2. Work After acquiring some familiarity with the typical problems of communication in virtual contexts, students are asked to deine a netiquette, that is a set of rules for a conscious and responsible online communication. The teacher shows a message (Annex 2) sent by a moderator in a web forum as an example to get some initial ideas. Students are divided into groups of 4-5 members and have approximately 40 minutes at their disposal. It is important that the discussion and the negotiation of the rules are constructive and regulated by a moderator. For this reason, the following roles are suggested: MODERATOR ROLES moderates the debate and the turns of speaking; calls to order in case of confusion; tries to guarantee equity in the participation inviting shy people to talk and restricting the hyper-talkative ones; sums up the main issues of the discussion; REPORTER takes note of what is being told during the debate; CRITICAL FRIEND makes critical observations, highlights problems or aspects not taken into consideration, but worth of more attention; highlights clichés. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each group shares the results of its work with the rest of the class. The teacher writes down on the blackboard the rules that emerge from the presentations and suggests a summary. The activity ends with a relection about the diference between online and faceto-face interactions. The teacher asks students to think about the diferent rules that are or are not applied to virtual interaction and to face-to-face interaction. A summary is then written on a poster. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Scenarios Online communication can be less obvious than what it seems. You can easily fall into problematic situations such as the ones presented in the following scenarios. Read and analyse them, and then, using the evaluation grid provided, identify the appropriate and inappropriate communicative behaviours, explaining why. 027 Scenario 1 – Yesterday I went shopping! Zoe’s blog 028 Scenario 2 – What a beautiful ride! Scenario 3 - Programming, what a passion! 029 EVALUATION GRID Scenario 1 – I went shopping yesterday Anonymous’ behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Lucas’ behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Zoe’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Mary’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Scenario 2 – What a beautiful ride! Universal sport’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Zoe’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Noemi’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… John’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Scene 3 – Programming, what a passion! Mary’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Paul’s behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Lucas’ behaviour It is appropriate/inappropriate because… Annex 2 – Welcome to this forum! Here is an example of a private message sent by a moderator in a web forum which explains the rules to follow in order to take part in the discussion. Read it and take it as an example to build up your Netiquette. 030 Activity C THE WIKIJOURNAL AIM The aim of this activity is to promote collaboration and negotiation among the students. They are involved in an activity of participatory journalism, which requires the deinition, sharing and respect of certain roles and rules, as well as the common commitment to achieve a common target. In particular, students are asked to create a collaborative newspaper using a wiki* or a blog*, or both. PARTICIPATORY JOURNALISM Participatory journalism is also known as “open journalism”, “citizen journalism” or “interactive journalism”. As these expressions suggest, it is a kind of journalism which involves some sort of collaboration from the readers, or even a change of roles in those cases in which the newspaper is fully written and controlled by the readers. These new forms of journalism are partly related to the latest developments of the 2.0 technologies that make extremely simple and immediate the online publication process facilitating the sharing of contents. As a result, today the user is not considered as a mere consumer of information, but as an information producer as well. To include both of these functions the term “prosumer” has been created (O’Real, 2005). It frequently happens, especially when the newspaper is written by the readers, that it refers to local news, in order to increase the citizens’ participation in the civic and social life of their own community. As a result, participatory journalism embraces the new emerging forms of e-engagement in the 2.0 social media and digital network ield. There are several forms of participatory journalism, based on the user’s level of involvement (Outing, 2005): Level 1: simple comment from the reader; Level 2: simple contribution from the reader (a link, a picture) to a professional journalist’s article; Level 3: more direct contribution from the reader who guides or supports the journalists (collaborative journalism), e.g. the journalist needs to interview somebody and asks the readers to suggest the questions; 031 Level 4: it concerns the blogger-citizen, especially at a local level (he/she can be either given a blog space in the newspaper or a reader blog is selected); Level 5: it has to do with the transparency concept and it consists in involving the readers in the writing task (e.g. news organization); Level 6: it refers to a proper participatory journalism website entirely handled by the readers who now become journalists and write especially about local events that involve themselves personally and can consequently be testiied; Level 7: it is like the previous one, but this time news are published immediately without being checked or edited; Level 8: it is like the previous one, with the addition of a paper version; Level 9: an hybrid form that puts together professionals and tens of journalists-citizens; Level 10: mix of professionals’ articles (remunerated) and citizens’ articles (free content) Level 11: WikiJournalism – everyone can write and publish news/stories, and also edit what has been already written (adding photos and links, or providing the text with other details or little corrections etc.). The best example is WikiNews: http://en.wikinews.org. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work Before starting their work, it is important that the students become familiar with the technological tools involved in the activities, especially with the blog or wiki (or both). At the same time, the teacher prepares the writing environment creating a wiki or a blog for this purpose. In order to create the wiki, the teacher can use popular tools such as WikiSpaces (http://www.wikispaces.com), MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/ wiki/MediaWiki) or PBWorks (http://pbworks.com). In order to create the blog, Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) and WordPress (http://wordpress.org) are two user-friendly tools. The use of these tools requires the creation of an account by the user. This could be problematic with minors. Therefore, before using them, it is recommended to check the security level of the web hosting the service that we need. For example, Wikispaces use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) for secure communication and transfer of data. 032 Before creating the editorial team, the teacher introduces and explains the activities through a brainstorming about the newspaper structure (title, design, layout, etc.) Creation of the editorial team: students are divided into small groups (4-5 students), roles are deined (e.g. editor-in-chief, reporter, photographer, editor, proof reader etc.) and rules are shared. It is important: • not to underestimate the division of labour: it is important to give students a sense of responsibility; • to discuss about and share rules to be followed by the groups: simply dividing the students into groups is not suicient to form collaborative groups! • to tell the students what they are expected to do in order to orient them and help them to evaluate themselves. 2. Work Editorial team in action: students are now ready to work. Activity is organized following these steps: deining the mock-up: the editorial team deines the issues to be dealt with and the importance that each one of these issues will have in the newspaper. It also discusses about the possible sources, distributes the roles and set the deadlines; searching the news: searching and collecting the news are the starting point. This activity can be carried out in several ways: collecting information in the classroom through reciprocal interviews and the Internet; collecting news at school through interviews to students and teachers from other classes; going out of the school and collecting news in the streets. The choice depends upon the amount of time and feasibility; checking the sources: once the news are collected, the teacher reminds the young journalists the importance to verify sources through diferent confrontations; drafting collectively the article in wiki: the editorial team is now ready to write... before doing that, it is important to share a WikiQuette (Annex 1) and give the students some advice in order to write efectively (Annex 2); reviewing the text and the style; publishing: the article is ready to be published. 3. Post-work After the irst experience of collective writing, the teacher starts a discussion in the classroom concerning the levels of active participation allowed to readers and suggests to create a policy of the newspaper on these aspects. Showing some examples may be important (Annex 3). 033 MATERIALS Annex 1 – WikiQuette During the process of collective writing, it is important that working partners share some basic rules in order to avoid misunderstandings and conlicts. Imagine, for example, to write down some notes into your common wiki, temporary but important notes, and ind out a few hours later that they have been deleted or modiied because somebody , without putting his/her signature on it, has edited it. It is very likely for you to get angry... In order to avoid these kinds of unpleasant surprises, the best thing to do is to deine and share a WikiQuette. A WikiQuette consists of a set of rules to make the wiki social exchanges easier and reduce the risk of conlicts and misunderstandings. Some rules could be: 1. Write few sentences each time 2. Always sign your contribution 3. Always quote the sources 4. Read other writers’ contributions 5. Where appropriate, comment or correct other writers’ contributions, always putting your signature 6. Never delete other people contributions 7. Others... Let’s continue and improve this list… Annex 2 - Suggestions for efective writing Here are a few easy rules to write an efective article! • Rule 1 – Put yourself in the reader’s shoes... which means to write simple, clear and short sentences • Rule 2 – Don’t get lost on the way... get to the point of the news • Rule 3 – Respect the famous 5 W... who is the main character, what happened, where, when and why • Rule 4 – Take notice of the details... they intrigue the readers and give the news credibility • Rule 5 – A good start is half the battle... a good start draws the readers’ attention and sums up the topic of the article • Rule 6 – Some spicy details... don’t spoil the news! 034 Annex 3 – Examples of policies You need to deine a policy for your participatory newspaper. Where to start from? You can get some ideas from the following examples. The irst is realistic but partially made up. The second one has been taken from WikiNews. Check them up! EXAMPLE N.1 – A VOLUNTEERING ASSOCIATION’S BLOG 035 EXAMPLE N. 2 – WIKINEWS Source: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Etiquette Source: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Etiquette 036 http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Etiquette 037 1.3 The Big Brain “LEARNING ON THE GAME, LEARNING THROUGH THE GAME” SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER At the end of the activity and before the inal evaluation, students are asked to make a short activity with the online game “The Big Brain”. The teacher starts the activity in class, explaining the assignment, that is: go to the website of the online game “The Big Brain”, enter the “Message Centre”, leave an idea of the Netiquette and suggest at least 2 rules and 2 comments. When at home, students are asked to share in the wall their suggestions and make a summary of the most important rules emerging from the discussion. The result of this activity will be then shared and discussed in class. INSTRUCTION FOR THE STUDENTS It is time to share a Netiquette even with your “Big Brain” playmates. If you have already done it, are you sure you have included all the fundamental rules? If you haven’t done it yet, it is necessary to start working on it. As a start, go to the “Message Centre” and put yourself in the area “Sharing Wall”. Say hello to your classmates, leave an idea and suggest the irst rule, asking others to participate. If the others have already made some suggestions, write a comment, an opinion or a suggestion. If the others have not yet participated, ask them politely through a private message to do so. Try to suggest at least two rules and two comments (=2 suggestions and 2 comments). Supervise the suggestions and comments of your classmates in the wall for at least a couple of days. Write on a sheet the rules that you consider to be more important and discuss them with your classmates and teacher. 038 1.4 EVALUATION At the end of the activities, the teacher provides the students with one or more of the following self-evaluation grids, depending on the number of the activities done. Once illed in, they will be checked and discussed in the class. Evaluation Activity A ALL INCLUDED! INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Knowledge and understanding (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) “digital divide”? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand what could be A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the digital divide’s efects? B) No, because… (ill in) Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I use credible or veriied sources? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I really give my contribution A) Yes, for example… (ill in) in the pair’s work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively take part in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) discussion in the classroom? B) No, because… (ill in) Timeline (with regard to your individual performance) Is the timeline clear and A) Yes, for example… (ill in) coherent? B) No, because… (ill in) A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Is the timeline complete? B) No, because… (ill in) Can the timeline be improved? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) 039 Evaluation Activity B SHARING A NETIQUETTE INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I actively take part in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) group’s work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively take part in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) discussion in the classroom? B) No, because… (ill in) Comprehension and understanding (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) “computer-mediated commuB) No, because… (ill in) nication”? Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) “inappropriate communicative B) No, because… (ill in) behaviour”? Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) “Netiquette”? B) No, because… (ill in) Communication and organization (with regard to the group’s performance) Did we set, share and respect A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the communication rules? B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) roles? B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the schedule? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the deadlines? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) 040 Evaluation Activity C THE WIKIJOURNAL INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I use credible or veriied A) Yes, for example… (ill in) sources? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I quote appropriately the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) sources? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively take part in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) group’s work? B) No, because… (ill in) Communication and organization (with regard to the group’s performance) Did we set, share and respect the communication rules? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) roles? B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) schedule? B) No, because… (ill in) Did we set and respect the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) deadlines? B) No, because… (ill in) Language, writing and genres (with regard to your individual performance) A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Is the text clear and coherent? B) No, because… (ill in)) Is the text written according to A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the rules of journalistic style? B) No, because… (ill in) A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Can the text be improved? B) No, because… (ill in) 041 UNIT 2: CREDIBILITY 2.1 AIMS The ability to ind, select, evaluate and organize information in a critical and creative way is a fundamental condition for a proitable use of the information nowadays. As known, one of the main advantages of the Internet development is the growth of information sources. Databases, information websites, online services, digital teaching resources are nowadays easy to access through a mere click of a mouse, ofering the users unprecedented opportunities to access knowledge and information. At the same time, however, new problems arise. The so-called phenomenon of “disintermediation”, that is the loss of the ilters that traditionally mediated the relation between the user and information (think for example of the editorial board of a paper encyclopaedia), raises new debates about the reliability and quality of the online information. How to ind pertinent online information? What are the criteria to evaluate its reliability and credibility? How to elaborate information in a critical and creative way? This unit aims at promoting students’ ability to ind appropriate information sources and critically evaluate them; it also aims at promoting the development of creative practices of information re-elaboration. In brief, this unit aims at developing the following knowledge and skills/abilities: • Understanding of how search engines work • Understanding the concept of information reliability • Understanding the concept of credibility • Ability to develop a strategy of web searching • Ability to critically evaluate information • Ability to organize and summarize information. 042 STRUCTURE, PREREQUISITES AND TOOLS This unit is divided into three activities. The irst one is dedicated to search engines; the second one to the evaluation of online information; the third one consists of a webbased inquiry. These three activities altogether deal with the diferent issues connected to the use of online information, especially focusing on the concept of reliability and credibility. The teacher can decide whether to carry them all out or just one or two. The irst two activities may require one or two classes. The third one is more complex and as such it requires at least three classes. Students are required to be able to use web browsers as well as word processing and multimedia presentation tools. At least 1 PC every 2 students and an Internet connection are required. The availability of an interactive whiteboard in the classroom can facilitate the activity of sharing relections about the online sources taken into consideration. UNIT OVERVIEW Brief description Key words Target Duration Prerequisites TITLE: CREDIBILITY The unit proposes three activities that aim at developing students’ awareness about their own strategies of online searching and also about the problem of online information reliability/credibility Reliability, credibility, quality of the information, information overload, search engines Students aged 14-16 and older Total duration: 17 hours Activity A - “A map for searching”: approximately 4 hours Activity B - “I evaluate, you evaluate”: approximately 4 hours Activity C - “The webquest*: watch out for the virus!”: approximately 8 hours The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: homework and 30 minutes class discussion Evaluation: 30 minutes Being able to use a browser, and word processing/multimedia presentation software 043 Modality Materials and tools Software Activity A - “A map for searching”: group work Activity B - “I evaluate, you evaluate”: in pairs Activity C - “The webquest: watch out for the virus!”: group work The Big Brain – “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: individual work Evaluation: individual work At least 1 PC every 2 students; Internet connection; board; paper and pen Activity A - “A map for searching”: software for concept maps such as http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html. Activity B - “I evaluate, you evaluate”: no speciic software is required. Activity C - “The webquest: watch out for the virus!”: no speciic software is required 2.2 ACTIVITIES Activity A A MAP FOR SEARCHING AIM The aim of this activity is to make students think about how search engines* work and also about their own strategies for searching online information. Students are asked to deine and implement a search strategy, based on the construction of a concept map that will gradually be improved on the basis of the obtained results. At the end of the activity they should share their work with the class and think about the eficacy of the keywords they used for their search. SEARCH ENGINES A search engine is a tool that allows people to ind online information by using one word or a combination of words that are thought to be associated with the information they’re looking for. How does a search engine work? There are many prejudices and wrong perceptions about search engines that need to be modiied for an aware use of these tools. 044 In particular, it is necessary to know that: Search engines analyze only 30-35% of the available web pages, the rest belongs to what is called the “invisible web” that, for many reasons (for example, think about protected pages), remains inaccessible. Search engines don’t search the whole web. They only search for the words suggested by the user within an alphabetical index automatically updated by a software. Search engines are not all the same: systematic indexes are diferent from search engines. The former belong to the categorical type and imply human intervention: as a matter of fact they are annotated catalogues of sources where information is collected and organized on the basis of categories predeined by the persons who ilter the information. The latter are instead based on keywords and do not imply any human mediation: as said, they allow to search words or combination of words within alphabetical indexes automatically generated. What can be found on the web does not exactly correspond to what is available at that moment. The parallelism between what is found and what is actually available on the web is not possible since search engines consult their own list of words and not the real pages available on the web at the moment of the query. Search engines don’t work in the same way. They identify results according to diferent criteria. Even if they are based on similar principles – such as the one according to which if a word has a high occurrence within a document, that document is about the issue that word refers to – each search engine articulates them diferently. Advertisements are more and more afecting the modality of ranking the results obtained by web quest. Finally, the idea that the information sources that are ranked as irst are the most important is unfounded. Although expert users know it, everybody usually tends to consult only the irst results, overlooking the rest. 045 INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of search engines, asking students some questions, such as: Do you know what a search engine is? Do you know what is it for? Which search engines do you use more? Do you always use the same search engine? If so, why? Do you know others? The teacher writes the answers on the board and, after this irst exploration, gives some essential information on how search engines work, also delivering the students a brief information form (Annex 1). Then, the teacher solicits once again the students with some more questions: When you search on the Internet, where do you start from? The teacher asks the students to represent graphically, step by step, the procedures followed during the searching of the online information. In order to help the students the teacher makes an example: “Let’s imagine you must do a research about search engines. What do you do? For example, one way could be… Phase 1: I start Google, Phase 2: I write the words ‘search engines’, Phase 3: I look at the irst two results found, and so on… Now write a scheme of your personal habits and then write your name on a sheet”. The teacher collects the sheets. Subsequently, he/she identiies similar procedural approaches, mistakes or the most common false beliefs (for example, the tendency to consult only the irst results in the search engine’s listing, implicitly presuming that they are the most relevant) that will be further discussed at the beginning of the following lesson. 2. Work After stimulating the students to think about their web searching habits, the teacher suggests them to deine and improve a searching strategy, based on the construction of a concept map (Annex 2). This activity can be developed in small groups of 3-4 students, with at least 1 PC for each group. The topic of the research can be suggested by the teacher or shared by the students depending on the situation. The construction of the map is structured into three steps: (adaptation of the SEWCOM* method): 046 A) Initial brainstorming and creation of a concept map with words related to the topic that is going to be searched online. Graphical representation as it follows: B) Reorganization of the map according to conceptual areas and identiication of keywords relating to each area to be used with search after engines the more closely related concepts are grouped together highlighting them with a circle or some other graphic element. The map is thus reorganized according to conceptual areas and the keywords from each area are identiied. Then, the students search the Internet using the browser, open a search engine and use the identiied keywords to start the quest. 047 C) Quick skimming and irst selection of the documents found, discovering new words to be added to the map: with this irst quest, some documents are read and selected, while others are rejected. There is no need at this stage to go into details for critical evaluation of the information found: only a irst selection is made, evaluating whether to add new keywords or delete others. For example, if using the keyword “dog” no pertinent websites are found, such a word must be then deleted. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each group shares the result of their own work specifying: • How many and which keywords were used; • How many results were selected; • How many keywords were more fruitful; • Which keywords were deleted. The teacher concludes the class emphasizing the importance of planning web quests in an appropriate and aware manner, pointing out in particular how a proper selection of keywords can bring to more efective results. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Six things you need to know about search engines! Almost every day you use Google, Yahoo or other search engines to make your web quests. But do you know how these tools work? Here are a few must-know things... • • • • • • Search engines analyze only 30-35% of the pages available on the world wide web Tools for web search are not all the same: systematic indexes are different from search engines, the former entails human intervention, the latter are based on the use of a software Search engines don’t directly search the web, but only the alphabetical index created by the software What you ind on the Internet does not correspond to what is really available on the Internet at that moment Search engines identify results according to diferent criteria Advertisements are more and more afecting the web search results’ ranking. 048 Annex 2 – Concept maps: what they are and how to create them A concept map is a graphic representation of the existing relations amongst concepts, formulated in a synthetic way through word-concepts. Be careful: a concept map is not a simple scheme! In a concept map the links amongst the diferent concepts are described in an explicit way. An example can help understanding it: (taken from Marco Guastavigna, http://www.pavonerisorse.it/cacrt/mappe/pagsec.htm): A map can be simply created with paper and pen. Speciic software, however, can also be used. Here are some open source examples: • CmapTools: a software developed by the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition at the Cornell University of West Florida and based on the studies of the creator of concept maps, Novak. It can be downloaded from: http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html. • Freemind: another open source software, developed in Java, used to easily create concept maps. It can be downloaded from: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download. 049 Activity B I EVALUATE, YOU EVALUATE AIM The aim of this activity is to make students aware on the issue of online information reliability and credibility. They are asked to think about the criteria they usually use to evaluate online information and compare them with more formalized criteria. Afterwards, they are asked to evaluate the websites selected during the previous activity (Activity A) in order to establish their reliability rate. At the end of the activity, they share their work with the class and justify their own evaluations. EVALUATION CRITERIA OF ONLINE INFORMATION How to evaluate online information reliability? What criteria should be taken into consideration? There are diferent criteria. Here you ind an adaptation of Kerry Nichols’s “Criteria: a Guide to Evaluating Resources”, http://web.archive.org/ web/20051208005010/http://web1.umkc.edu/lib/engelond/criteria.htm. Authority: Is it possible to identify the author of the source? Who is he/she? Is it possible to contact him/her? What are his/her credentials? Does the author seem to be an exper? Who published the information? Is there any advertisement or sponsorship? Audience and Aim: Who is the intended audience of the source? What level of expertise the reader is required to possess? Is the purpose of the source clear? Is its perspective (chronological, geographical) clearly described? Does the source fulil its aim? Are there any omissions or gaps? Is the source really original? Accuracy: Is the source accurate? Is it grammatically correct? Are dates correct? Can the information be traced to an authoritative source? Are quotes correct? Does the author’s point of view emerge? Currency: When does the source date back? Is it updated? Does it keep up on the current developments of a certain ield of knowledge? Is it the most recent version of the work? Are all its links active? Structure: Is the source organized in a clear and logical way? What kind of indexes are present? Are they all working and functional? Is there a user guide? Is there an internal search engine? Does it take into account the criteria of accessibility? 050 INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of online information reliability and the criteria for evaluating it, asking students some questions, such as: • According to you, is online information true? Is it reliable? Is it possible to rely on what is published on the Internet? • Have you ever had any doubts about the truthfulness of online information? If so, why? • What criteria do you consider for the reliability of a website? What aspects do you take into consideration? The teacher writes down on the board the criteria emerged during the debate, sort out the similar ones and provides the students with a list of some formalized evaluation criteria (Annex 1), asking to compare and comment them with. 2. Work At this stage of the activity, students should be able to start working on the critical evaluation of online information. The exercise is based on what was done during the Activity A “A map for searching”. Students are asked to start from the websites selected by the group during the irst phase of the search. The group is divided into pairs, and each pair is given a variable number (from 5 to 8) of websites to evaluate. For the evaluation, each pair of students can use the criteria indicated in the Evaluation form (Annex 1). At the end of the evaluation activity, each pair of students will have to ill in a grid (“The Grid of Truth”, Annex 2) indicating for each website at least two reasons why it is considered as reliable or not. These grids are then presented and discussed in class. 3. Post-work As a consequence of the evaluation carried out so far, some websites will be rejected and maybe an additional closer examination of the previous web quest will be necessary...so, let’s go back to the concept map created during the Activity A. Each group goes back to its own map, deletes inappropriate words and concepts, adds new ones and proceeds to the inal development of the map, highlighting the concept relations that exist amongst the identiied words. 051 Each group shares and discusses the map with the classmates and the teacher. MATERIALS Annex 1 - The Charter of Evaluation Criteria Not everything published on the Internet is true, believable or reliable. So, what should you do? When you are on a website for the irst time, you need to verify its reliability before taking it as gospel. In the following Charter you can ind some suggestions for an efective evaluation! CRITERION 3 First of all, look at who is the author? Is he/she a known or unknown person? Is it a reliable or unknown organization? Who is the intended audience of the source? What level of expertise the reader is required to possess? What is the scope of the website? ...Is it cultural, informative or commercial? CRITERION 4 Is the information accurate?... Is it well written? Is it complete? CRITERION 5 CRITERION 6 Is the information updated?... Does the website contain new or old information? CRITERION 1 CRITERION 2 Is the website organized in a clear and functional way? Or is it confused? Annex 2 – The grid of truth After evaluating the websites selected during the Activity A, you are now ready for a inal evaluation of the level of reliability of the online information analysed! Try it yourself by illing in the following grid: Name Surname 1 __________________________________ Name Surname 2 __________________________________ REASONS FOR THE RELIABILITY OR WEBSITE LEVEL OF RELIABILITY UNRELIABILITY (INDICATE AT LEAST TWO) High Website 1 Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Medium Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Low High Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Website 2 Medium Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Low 052 Website 3 Website 4 Website 5 Website6 Website 7 Website 8 High Medium Low High Medium Low High Medium Low High Medium Low High Medium Low High Medium Low Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 1: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Reason 2: the website is reliable/unreliable because… Activity C THE WEB QUEST: WATCH OUT FOR THE VIRUS! AIM The aim of this activity is to promote the development of the students’ ability to search for and critically evaluate online information. Students are involved in a webquest – an activity of Internet-based inquiry –, whose aim is to discover which system, among a series of given options, spreads malwares. At the end of the activity, the students share their work with the class and reformulate their deinition of computer virus and the related concepts. THE WEBQUEST According to Dodge’s deinition, the creator of this technique, a web quest is “An inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing” (Dodge, 1995). 053 Usually a webquest includes the following elements: 1. An introduction that provides some background information; 2. A doable and interesting task: the task is a key element since it limits the ield of intervention thus reducing dispersion (see also below); 3. A set of information sources are needed to complete the task: most of the information sources – although not all of them – will be already embedded in the webquest, while others could be searched by the students; some will be in a digital format, while others will be paper based or based on more traditional formats; it is quite clear that if teachers provide students with a selection of sources, dispersion may be avoided; consequently, the younger the students are, the stronger the guide must be… 4. A description of the process the students should go through in accomplishing the task; 5. A guidance on how to organize the information gathered, that is guiding questions provided by the teacher in order to help students organizing the information selected. These guidelines could be formulated in diferent forms: more or less guided questions, grids, concept maps, cause-and-efect diagrams, etc. 6. A conclusion: at the end of the process students are reminded about what they have learned and advised on how to extend this experience in order to gain more knowledge. Diferent types of tasks are possible: a) compilation tasks: the compilation of lists of external information sources in order to learn how to search and evaluate online information in a critical way; b) mystery tasks: in this case, the task is similar to that of a detective investigating the truth; c) journalistic tasks: students are asked to focus on a given event in order to learn how to obtain and verify information connected to that speciic event and how to present the acquired information in line with the linguistic codes and conventions of print media; d) design tasks: students are asked to plan a product or a service under certain constraints; e) creative product tasks: students are asked to represent a certain topic using a multimedia format. 054 INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of computer virus (Annex 1), asking students some questions, such as: • Do you know what a computer virus is? • Have you ever heard about systems responsible for the difusion of malwares? • Has your computer ever been infected? • How do you protect your computers from viruses? The teacher summarizes the answers emerging from the discussion on the board, using a concept map and highlighting doubts, cognitive gaps, and imprecise deinitions. The teacher does not complete or correct the information, but simply suggests to go and search on the web, thus launching the next activity. 2. Work After this brief initial discussion about the concept of virus, students are engaged with a webquest: Watch out for the virus! (Annex 2). Through this webquest, students are asked to role-play as detectives and ind out what system is responsible for the diffusion of malwares. For this purpose, they will have to search the web evaluating the relevance and reliability of online information in order to identify the responsible for malwares difusion. The teacher introduces the activity, explains the task and divides students into small groups of 3-4 people, each one with a speciic task. The webquest can be handed to the students in paper format. As an alternative, it can be turned into a multimedia presentation or a small website, using tools like WordPress (wordpress.org) or speciic applications such as: http://webquest.org/indexcreate.php. The webquest can be enriched, integrated, modiied, improved by the teacher depending on the needs of the class. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each group shares the results of their work. At the end of the presentation, the teacher shows again the concept map created at the beginning of the activity and invites students to correct, integrate and improve it according to what they have discovered through the webquest. 055 MATERIALS Annex 1 – Viruses, malwares and other dangers Computer viruses are a particular type of software that are permitted to execute code on a computer with the user ignoring it, infecting or damaging the PC and accomplishing its task. Usually, in order to execute the code, viruses must infect the hosting program by adding a harmful code, so that when the user launches the infected program, the virus invisibly starts working. The user only sees the execution of the program and does not notice that the virus has been activated and is working in the RAM memory executing all the tasks it was created for. Once the virus is executed, it can replicate itself and perform other tasks such as opening a backdoor, that is a “door” through which the creator of the virus can have access to the user’s PC, or even cause damages to the computer. Frequently, a virus damages the software of the computer but it can also damage the hardware. The following are diferent types of viruses: • Malware: it is a virus created with the only aim of damaging the hosting computer. • Worms: this type of virus does not require a program as a vehicle of difusion but it is simply self-executable thus reducing the computer’s performance. • Polymorphic viruses: these viruses can change at each infection so that it is harder for anti-virus programs to notice them. • Metamorphic viruses: they are stronger than the polymorphic viruses; they can change their code completely by dividing themselves in diferent parts inside an infected ile, thus resulting very hard for anti-virus programs to detect them. • Trojan Horse: Technically, they are not viruses because they don’t self-replicate; they are iles executable as normal programs, but once opened by the user, they can infect the computer. In order to mislead the user, they have names and icons similar to programmes that are useful and required by the user. Be careful on what you download from the web. • Harmless viruses: they are harmless programs that, once they are opened on the computer, they pretend to be viruses and generate graphic efects or writings on the screen. 056 Annex 2- The webquest: Watch out for the virus! INTRODUCTION In recent times, the web has been infested with computer viruses and many other threats. There are powerful systems that can spread malwares (that is, “malicious software”), damaging computers all around the world. What should we do? ASSIGNMENT Pretend to be a detective and try to look for those responsible for this computer catastrophe. At the moment, there are ive hypothesis: “Aruba”, “Rabricote”, “Android”, “Snuke”, “Philochip”. Which one is responsible for the difusion of malwares? INFORMATION SOURCES Useful website to start the quest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page PROCEDURES The activity is developed by small groups of 5 students each and is divided into the following phases: Phase 1: Initial brainstorming about keywords Before starting your quest, be sure of the words you are going to use when starting your webquest. The more words you think about during this phase, the better it is! Somebody has to write them down, otherwise the efort may be useless. Phase 2: Evaluation of the keywords and online searching Now that you have selected a good amount of words, evaluate if keeping them all or deleting some. If you decide to keep them all, identify those that in your opinion are more relevant, as a starting point for your quest. At the same time, decide who is going to do the quest and on what. For example, a group made up of ive people named A, B, C, D and E, could be organized as follows: 057 • A works on Aruba: Does Aruba spread malwares? • B works on Rabricote: Does Rabricote spread malwares? • C work on Android: Does Android spread malwares? • D works on Snuke: Does Snuke spread malwares? • E works on Philochip: Does Philochip spread malwares? Phase 3: Selection and evaluation of the online information In order to ind out who spreads malwares, you could start from the website indicated in “Information sources“, but you could also carry out some personal quest, using the keywords selected at the beginning of the activity. Once the websites are found, pay attention to the evaluation of the information gathered. Watch out, because there could be somebody whose only aim is to mislead you...and infect you with some malicious act. Phase 4: Summary and discussion At this stage, you are ready to summarize... each member of the group is responsible for the investigation that he/she was assigned to (A>Aruba; B>Rabricote; C>Android; D>Snuke; E>Philochip) and each one has to answer to one of the following questions (according to their own investigation): • Is Aruba spreading malwares? If not, who/what is Aruba? • Is Rabricote spreading malwares? If not, who/what is Rabricote? • Is Android spreading malwares? If not, who/what is Android? • Is Snuke spreading malwares? If not, who/what is Snuke? • Is Philochip spreading malwares? If not, who/what is Philochip? The answers must be documented and based on evidence. The group will discuss about the results of the investigation and create a inal summary document, with evidence attached. CONCLUSION Now you are ready to share your work with your classemates. Remember that you must be convincing so the more evidence you bring to support your position, the better it is! Good luck! 058 2.3 The Big Brain “LEARNING ON THE GAME, LEARNING THROUGH THE GAME” SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER At the end of the third activity and before the inal evaluation, we suggest to ask students to make a brief test through the online game “Big Brain”. The teacher asks the students to connect to the game, go to the location Library and try the challenges suggested there, that is catching the infected iles and answering the questionnaire. The teacher should emphasize the importance to leave and share comments with the other classmates-players. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDENTS Now that you have learned what a computer virus is, you can face your enemy, “the Big Brain”, that is infesting your city Library with viruses. Go to the location Library, catch the infected iles and protect your fellow citizens’ knowledge. Then answer the questionnaire. Don’t forget to add a comment to share with your classmates/players! 059 2.4 EVALUATION At the end of the activity, the teacher can provide students with the following selfevaluation grids, one or more according to the activity carried out. Once they are illed in, there will be a debate in class in order to compare the results. Evaluation Activity A A MAP FOR SEARCHING… INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand how search A) Yes, for example… (ill in) engines work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand what a A) Yes, for example… (ill in) keyword is? B) No, because… (ill in) Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I actively contribute to the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively participate in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debates? B) No, because… (ill in) Concept map (with regard to the group’s performance) Is the concept map clear and A) Yes, for example… (ill in) coherent? B) No, because… (ill in) A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Is the concept map complete? B) No, because… (ill in) Can the concept map be A) Yes, for example… (ill in) improved? B) No, because… (ill in) 060 Evaluation Activity B I EVALUATE, YOU EVALUATE INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regards to your individual performance) Did I contribute actively to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) pair work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I contribute actively to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debates? B) No, because… (ill in) Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) reliability/credibility of online B) No, because… (ill in) information? Did I understand the evaluation A) Yes, for example… (ill in) criteria of online information? B) No, because… (ill in) Selection and evaluation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I ind at least two reliable A) Yes, for example… (ill in) websites? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I ind at least two unreliable A) Yes, for example… (ill in) websites? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I suggest at least two A) Yes, for example… (ill in) reasons for reliability? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I suggest at least two A) Yes, for example… (ill in) reasons for unreliability? B) No, because… (ill in) 061 Evaluation Activity C THE WEBQUEST: WATCH OUT FOR THE VIRUS! INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I contribute actively to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) group work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I contribute actively to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate about the group B) No, because… (ill in) work? Selection and evaluation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand how to plan a strategy for online research? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand how to appropriately use the Internet in A) Yes, for example… (ill in) order to satisfy my information B) No, because… (ill in) needs? Selection and evaluation (with regard to your individual performance) Was I active in the search of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) relevant information? B) No, because… (ill in) Was I active in the selection of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) relevant information? B) No, because… (ill in) Was I active in the evaluation of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) relevant information? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I compare and verify the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) information found more than B) No, because… (ill in) once? TOOL K UNITÀ CINQUE: 062 UNIT THREE: IDENTITY 3.1 AIMS “Know thyself” is the ancient Greek aphorism, inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, that well summarizes Socrates’ exhortation to ind the truth inside oneself. Even if many things have changed since Socrates’ times, the invitation to build up a deeper and better self-knowledge as a base to understand the outside world, remains still valid, especially for young people that go through a fundamental phase for the building up of their own identity during their adolescence. Which role can digital technologies play within this delicate process of identity construction? On the one hand, scholars who have dealt with these themes have underlined the positive role that networks can have in terms of supporting self-exploration and experimentation of multiple identities as a consequence of the online anonymity conditions that make it possible for the subjects to express diferent versions of themselves, new or unpredictable, and to know themselves under diferent proiles. Furthermore, the possibility to express themselves using a variety of linguistic codes (texts, images, music, videos, and so on) can have positive outcomes in terms of expressive potentialities of the subjects when representing themselves. On the other hand, the relative conditions of anonimity allowed by the web can lead to unpleasant consequences, such as providing tricking information on their own identity: for example, one can claim to be an “expert doctor” providing the users of a web forum with advice, while medicine being actually a perfect stranger for the supposed “expert doctor”. It can also happen that the subjects involved cannot distinguish in an adequate way the context in which they operate, giving an inappropriate and unsuitable representation of themselves: this is the case of those who post negative comments on their employers on Facebook, without paying attention to the fact that some of their colleagues can see the posted 063 comments because they are online friends. This unit aims at promoting the ability of learners to distinguish between diferent roles and contexts, focusing on the distinction between online and oline identities; besides, it wants to encourage the development of expressive and self-presentation abilities for a better self-knowledge related to the context and the audience, as well. In brief, the unit aims at encouraging the development of the following knowledge and skills/abilities: • Understanding of the online/oline concept of identity • Understanding of the relationship between identity and roles/contexts • Understanding of positive and negative implications of the online identity • Ability of self-exploration with relation to the diferent contexts (online/ oline) • Ability to understand other people’s self-representations • Ability of self-presentation with relation to the aim and the audience STRUCTURE, PREREQUISITES AND TOOLS The unit is divided into three activities. The irst one is dedicated to the exploration of the concepts of online/oline identity; the second one summarizes and deepens the previous issue, taking into consideration the risks connected to identity deception; the third one proposes the creation of a self-presentation based on the use of digital languages, in accordance with storytelling*. The three activities altogether deal with the diferent issues connected to the online identity, focusing both on the positive aspects (exploration and self-knowledge) and to the problematic ones (deception). The teacher can decide whether to carry them all out or just one or two. The irst two activities may require one or two classes. The third one is more complex and requires at least three classes. Students are required to be able to use web browsers as well as word processing and multimedia presentation tools. As for the third activity, at least 1 PC every 2 students and an Internet connection are required. The availability of an interactive whiteboard in the classroom can facilitate the activity of sharing relections about the online sources taken into consi-deration. 064 UNIT OVERVIEW Brief description Key words Target Duration Prerequisites Modality Materials and tools Software TITLE: IDENTITY The unit proposes three activities that aim at developing student’s awareness about the concepts of online/oline identity, and at promoting self-presentation skills in a digital context Identity, avatar, self-presentation, self-expression, self-image, image of the others, storytelling Students aged 14-16 and older Total duration: 17 hours Activity A – “One, No one and One Hundred Thousand”: approximately 4 hours Activity B – “Show me your avatar and I’ll tell you who you are”: approximately 4 hours Activity C – “Me in 5 shots”: approximately 8 hours The Big Brain - “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: approximately 30 minutes Evaluation: 30 minutes Being able to use a browser, and word processing/multimedia presentation software Activity A – “One, No one and One Hundred Thousand”: individual and group work Activity B – “Show me your avatar and I’ll tell you who you are”: in pairs Activity C – “Me in 5 shots”: individual work The Big Brain - “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: individual work Evaluation: individual work At least 1 PC every 2 students; Internet connection; board; paper and pen; if possible, a DVD with projector Activity A – “One, No one and One Hundred Thousand”: no speciic software is required Activity B – “Show me your avatar and I’ll tell you who you are”: no speciic software is required Activity C – “Me in 5 shots”: a multimedia presentation software or Photo Story 3 065 3.2 ACTIVITIES Activity A ONE, NO ONE AND ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND AIM The aim of this activity is to make students think about the concept of identity in diferent online and oline contexts. As a start, students are asked to make a selfpresentation by creating a sort of identity card, and then they are asked to participate in a role-play in order to face diferent situations. At the end of this activity, students are asked to relect on how the identity of the same person can change depending on the contexts. IDENTITY (ONLINE/OFFLINE) AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES The title of this activity, “One, No one and One Hundred Thousand”, is inspired by one of the most famous novels by the Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello. Published in 1926, this novel focuses on the theme of identity by narrating the story of Vitangelo Moscarda, the main character of the novel who goes through a process that makes him identify irst as being unique for everybody (One), and then as having no single identity (No one), after having developed the awareness of possessing multiple identities in the eyes of others. Apart from the speciic philosophical position of Pirandello, we all have experienced the multiplicity of “egos” coexisting in ourselves and the social conditioning which inluences the construction of our self-representations. Social life, social relationships, and living in this world involve roles and identities that change as time goes by and in the diferent contexts. We are or we were children, adolescents or adults, students or teachers, children or parents… Identity construction is an ongoing process that continues throughout the whole lifetime, but during adolescence it proves to be critical more than ever. What kind of impact do the media have in this process? More speciically, what part do social networks play? Social networks belong to a particular category of websites whose main characteristic is that users proiles and comments posted on their walls are a navigable virtual social network. The proile contains identity information about the user (such as age, gender, interests, and so on) and owns an URL that can be directly visited. Those visiting the proile can also post comments or information that will 066 be seen by other users. Moreover, social networks allow users to create lists of other proiles – the so-called “friends” –, to create links to friends’ proiles, and to see other users’ comments. A virtual network is thus generated, and each connection contains a link to other users proiles. As a consequence, users concerned can navigate through this social network using the “friends of friends” setting. Facebook is the most popular social network site, with signiicant implications in the socialization ield. To be on Facebook you irst need to create your personal proile, which means to decide which and how much personal information you want to share publicly. Living on Facebook requires interaction with other people with every action performed being public or semi-public, thus involving that other information on our proile will be available. Considering these brief observations, it is quite easy to understand that being and living on Facebook – a very common practice among the new generation nowadays – leads to a number of problems and questions directly related to the topic of identity construction. Which information should we share? Which are the limits of privacy today? How to deal with the “inevitable self-narration” generated by the simple fact of being on Facebook? How to distinguish among contexts, our being “One, No one and One Hundred Thousand”, and protect our own image? These are only some of the questions. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of identity in the diferent online and oline contexts, asking students some questions, such as: • What does the word “identity” mean? • Is it possible to have more than one identity in real life? • Does identity change depending on the contexts? • Are there any diferences between online and oline identity? Then, the teacher sums up the outcomes of the discussion, underlining some concepts such as: a) identity is not something that remains the same forever, but it is always evolving; b) identity changes depending on the contexts: being a student is diferent from being a son/daughter, for example, or being a son/daughter is diferent from being a friend; c) identity construction partly consists in a selective process through which we can decide what kind of personal information we want to share with other people. After having clariied the above-mentioned concepts, the teacher suggests the students to prepare a self-presentation, creating a sort of “identity card to friendship” 067 (which means a self-presentation in order to ind new friends), where they can also attach personal pictures, brought from home. Through this activity, students are asked to select which information to share or not about themselves. This aspect should be appropriately underlined by the teacher. The creation of the identity card requires to ill in a form (Annex 1) that will be presented to the teacher at the end of the class. 2. Work After having encouraged the students to relect on the concept of identity and, particularly, on their own “friend identity”, they are introduced to the mime game through which they are asked to play diferent roles in diferent contexts. Students are divided in groups of 5-6. Each group is asked to play a mime: the teacher tells three members of the group the roles/situations they are supposed to represent and the rest of the group needs to guess which role/situation is being represented in a limited period of time (15 seconds). The main characters are always two: Giovanni and Francesca, two sixteen years old adolescents, but they change their roles and situation as follows: ROLE SITUATION In the city centre, going Francesca, the vain one: when she is with her friends she becomes vain shopping In the park, with his Giovanni, the tough guy: Giovanni is a bit arrogant with younger people school friends Giovanni, the “swot” one: he always puts his hand up to ask questions At school, during classes Francesca, the older sister: she is very responsible with her younger In the family context brothers Giovanni, the talented singer: he has a great voice and sings with With his own band pleasure Francesca, the great skater: she trains doing her best At the gym Giovanni, the fond brother: he is got 2 older sisters and takes care of In the family context them Giovanni, the naughty son: he is always whimsical with his parents In the family context Francesca, the shy one with her schoolmates: she is a vain girl with her At the cinema girlfriends, but she is shy with the guys Francesca, the naughty student: she speaks all the time and disturbs the At school, during classes lessons 068 The group that successfully guesses the larger number of roles/situations wins the game. Students are not asked to name the exact words used in the table as long as they give evidence that they have understood the kind of role and situation. While the students are playing, the teacher gradually writes on the board the roles that are being played. It is advised to use the following scheme, both for Giovanni and for Francesca: It clearly emerges from the above scheme that Giovanni seems to have diferent contradictory identities. How to explain this? To encourage students to relect on this problem, at the end of the game they are asked to invent a short story in which the diferent roles played by Giovanni can make sense. For example, Giovanni is a model student, but he is got a weak character, as a result when he goes to the park he is inluenced by the older friends and acts as a tough guy; or he feels neglected by his parents, so he is a good student at school, but he is also a naughty boy at home. Imagination can help students understand the diicult game of the self and of the diferent identities. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, the teacher proposes a relection on the just ended game, asking students some questions, such as: • Who is actually Giovanni? Who is actually Francesca? • To what extent situations can condition our way of being? • Do their behavior appear to be coherent or not? • Have you ever played contradictory roles? • What would you change in your identity card after this game? 069 Finally, the teacher underlines the importance of a better self-knowledge and of the understanding of the restrictions on ourselves determined by the contexts where we live. Sometimes, these restrictions appear to be limiting self-expression, sometimes these restrictions are necessary: in some extreme cases, people can cheat about their own identity. MATERIALS Annex 1 – The identity card to friendship MY PICTURES (insert one or more pictures of yourself or of other people) ABOUT ME Activity B SHOW ME YOUR AVATAR AND I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE AIM The aim of this activity is to make students aware about the problem related to identity theft. Students are asked to match avatar and proiles, explaining their choice, and then they are asked to relect on what would happen if there was not a correspondence between the online and oline identity of the analyzed proiles. At the end of the activity, students are asked to relect on the choice of their avatar and on their own proile information. 070 AVATAR In the Internet slang, an avatar is a digital alter ego that the person can use to interact in a virtual environment. It is generally a picture chosen by the Internet users to represent themselves in a virtual community, chat, forum or online game. This picture can have different dimensions, generally set by the virtual community rules, and diferent subjects: it can show a fantasy character (such as a cartoon or a novel) or a real character (such as your favorite singer or actor, or even your own picture), but also various subjects, such as animals, landscapes and more. Avatars are mainly used in forums, chats and online role-play, where it is quite common to create alter egos. Avatar is also the name of a famous science iction ilm written and directed by James Cameron in 2009. Obviously, the ilm is set in the future. In 2154, the RDA, a terrestrial interplanetary company, wants to exploit the mineral deposits of Pandora, a primordial world, covered with rainforests and inhabited by the Na’vi, sapient humanoids with striped skin. Since the humans cannot breathe Pandora’s air without using ilter masks, scientists have created the avatars, hybrid bodies between humans and Na’vi without self-consciousness. The terrestrial company wants to get the unobtanium, an iron crystal whose exploitation could solve the world’s energetic problems. However, the richest deposits are based in inaccessible places particularly important for the Na’vi. As the diplomatic way does not seem to work, Colonel Quaritch and the corporate administrator Parker Selfridge prepare a military attack. In the meanwhile, Jake Sully bursts in the scene. The disabled former marine is called to take the place of his brother Tommy, killed during a robbery. Tommy was a scientist and his avatar had been created with his speciic genetic code. As a result, Jake is the only one who can take his place, being his identical twin. The Colonel thus proposes Jack a surgery to have his legs back in return for useful information for the attack. The former marine accepts the agreement, excited by the possibility of walking again. During an expedition, Jake meets Neytiri, a female Na’vi and a warrior that sees in him the cryptic signs of the will of Eywa, the divinity worshipped by the Na’vi. Jake wants to know the Na’vi customs and traditions, and despite the distrust of Tsu’tey, a warrior, Neytiri gets him to know her people and her emphatic relation with Pandora creatures. At the end, Jake is accepted by the tribe, learns their customs and falls in love with Neytiri, who returns his love. After several adventures, the Na’vi force terrestrial soldiers to leave Pandora, while Jake takes part in a holy ceremony, during which he leaves his human body and moves permanently to his avatar. The vision of this ilm, or some of it, can encourage a discussion on the concept of avatar. 071 INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, students will be proposed to watch some scenes from “Avatar” to introduce the concept of avatar and to encourage them to a irst relection on the theme of “masking” in virtual contexts with the related implications. Then, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about these concepts, asking students some questions, such as: • Do you know what avatar means? • Do you have your own avatar? • Are you sure that behind avatars, people are who they claim to be? The teacher writes down on the board the elements emerged during the discussion, in order to discuss about them at the end of the activity as a subject of relection ATTENTION: if you cannot start with the vision of the ilm, you can directly start from the questions. 2. Work The activity goes on with the “avatar game”. The class is divided into small groups (4-5 students maximum) and the students are asked to match ive avatars to ive proiles, explaining their choice. For this activity, the students can use the enclosed material (Annex 1). At the end of the matching activity, each group presents the results arguing its reasons. This is the correct matching: avatar 1 > proile 3; avatar 2 > proile 4; avatar 3 > proile 5; avatar 4 > proile 1; avatar 5 > proile 2. Anyway, students are not asked to successfully guess the exact correspondences, but to relect on the negative consequences that would derive from if the information provided in the proiles and suggested through the avatars was not true. In order to encourage this relection, the teacher will animate the discussion through a series of questions, such as: • What could happen if Angelo Rossi were a 16 year-old guy? • What could happen if Luca was 48 rather than 19? • What could happen if Lucilla were not an expert fortune-teller? 072 3. Post-work The activity ends with a relection on the negative consequences related to identity fraud, with a suggestion to choose with greater awareness your own avatar. ATTENTION! This suggestion to be cautious should not become a restriction on imagination and exploration. It is important that the teacher underlines that playing with your own identity is also a way to know yourself; the main thing is not to cheat or put other people at risk. MATERIALS Annex 1 – The avatar game There are ive avatars in search of a proile in table n.1 and ive proiles in search of an avatar in table n. 2. In the same way as a detective, you should observe the details and guess correspondences between avatars and proiles. At the end of this activity, you will present your work to your schoolmates and you will discuss about it with your teacher. TABLE N.1 AVATAR 1 AVATAR 2 AVATAR 3 AVATAR 4 AVATAR 5 TABLE N.2 PROFILE 1 My name is Emma and I’m 32. I live in Messina in a beautiful house with my husband, my children and a lovely dog. PROFILE 2 PROFILE 3 PROFILE 4 PROFILE 5 Hello, I’m Luca! My name is I am Angelo Rossi. I’m 19. I like going Lucilla. I am an Hello, I’m Elena. I have a degree to the cinema, expert fortune- I’m 14. I live with in Medicine and I doing sport and teller with several my family in a am available for staying with my years of experi- small town and I advice, including friends! Go ahead, ence. I can help love going to the online advice. I want to improve you solve your zoo. my contacts! problems. 073 CORRESPONDENCES AVATAR PROFILE (FILL IN THE FORM BY WRITING: WHY (EXPLAIN YOUR REASONS PROFILE 1 OR PROFILE 2 ETC.) FOR THE CORRESPONDENCES) Avatar 1 Avatar 2 Avatar 3 Avatar 4 Avatar 5 Credits: Avatar 1 and 2 are taken from http://it.imvu.com/signup/index; Avatar 3 is taken from http://www.forumsextreme.com/Avatars_Animals.html; Avatar 4 is taken from http://www.tiptopglobe.com/avatars-free-forum--igures-children, Avatar 5 is taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/avatars/index.shtml. Activity C ME IN 5 SHOTS AIM The aim of this activity is to promote the development of students’ self-presentation skills, using the digital languages. Students are asked to prepare a self-presentation through a brief narration in “5 shots” – based on images, texts and, in case, music – in accordance with storytelling. The presentation should underline personal characteristics, interests and life experiences. At the end of the activity, students are expected to present their work to a schoolmate and evaluate the communicative efectiveness of their work. TELL ABOUT YOURSELF WITH DIGITAL STORYTELLING The expression “digital storytelling” dates back to Joe Lambert (Executive Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling) and Dana Atchley, that created in the ‘90s a multimedia interactive system within a theater performance, showing in the background – using a wide screen – images and videos taken from life stories. This technique is based on the combination of narration and the use of multimedia languages. Storytelling means, indeed, “telling stories” and, in this case, it can be deined as the process that enables people to tell and share their stories, 074 inspired by their personal life, or resulting from their imagination. The adjective “digital” points out the birth of a new way of storytelling based on media production techniques that make use of computers, digital cameras, recorders, software and other similar tools. These new technologies allow people to share their stories on the Internet, podcasts or other delivery systems. The stories can be created using diferent formats. They can simply be audio-based: in this case voices, sounds efects, noises and music will be used. They can also use static or multimedia images or take the shape of a multimedia hypertext, thus allowing the creation of an interactive story where the user can choose his/her own navigation path. The 7 elements suggested by Joe Lambert for an efective storytelling are: 1. Point of view: stories should be personal and real 2. The story should always be worth telling 3. Content must be intriguing 4. It is better to use your voice 5. Soundtrack is important since it has the power to anticipate what is going to happen 6. All the components (voice, music, images) should be used in an harmonic way without generating redundancy. Sometimes a few images, a few sentences and a bit of music are suicient. Let the implicit and the metaphors speak. 7. The rhythm is the secret of narration Nowadays, digital storytelling is used more than ever in the educational ield, both as a pedagogical practice oriented to the knowledge and to the development of the individual – by means of autobiography –, and as an organizational learning practice as well. Storytelling can be the right place to reassemble personal contradictions and to imagine a possible future. As for the adolescents, it can be an important tool for the discovery, exploration and construction of their own identity in a delicate period of the existence that stands as a bridge between childhood and adulthood. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the importance of self-presentation to other people, asking students some questions, such as: • Do you know what a curriculum vitae is? Do you know the meaning of autobiography? • Both the curriculum vitae and the autobiography are tools useful to present 075 ourselves, but they are two diferent types of tools. Why are they diferent? Is it because of their aim? Is it because of the audience they are addressed to? • Have you ever prepared a personal presentation in order to exploit your qualities? If the answer is yes, which qualities have you emphasized? The teacher summarizes on the board the answers that emerge from the discussion, dividing them into groups according to their topic and introduces the next activity, asking the students to start relecting on how to set up a personal presentation in order to emphasize their abilities. 2. Work The teacher goes back to and revitalizes the activity, asking students what cannot be ignored in a self-presentation and writing on the board the emerging elements. Basically, a self-presentation aimed at emphasizing the individual’s abilities should contain a description of the following elements: 1) about me 2) what I can do 3) what I like doing 4) what I would like to learn to do 5) me and other people: how do I see them? How do they see me? The teacher should guide the students in order to make the above-mentioned elements emerge. At this point, students are ready to build their own multimedia self-presentation. The presentation is titled “Me in 5 shots” and is based on the creation of ive multimedia screens that can include images, written and/or registered texts, possible music.To arrange their presentation, students will create a storyboard (Annex 1), a helpful tool to support them during the design and development of their project. The teacher explains what a storyboard* is and provides the students with the form described in Annex 1. Otherwise, a multimedia presentation software can be used. The work should be done individually and the teacher will give each student a feedback. Once the storyboard is created, the attention will be focused on its implementation. Again, a multimedia presentation software could be used: the previously accomplished work will be examined and it will be reined technically and communicatively. As an alternative, the suggestion is to create a short video with very simple and common tools such as Photo Story 3 (Annex 2). 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each student will show his/her presentation to the class. A discussion will follow, moderated by the teacher that will focus the students’ attention on the following questions: • Which ones are the most common strong aspects underlined in your self-presentations? 076 • Which ones are the most common weak aspects underlined in your selfpre-sentations? • What would you improve in your self-presentation? How? MATERIALS Annex 1 – Storyboard: what is it and how do you create it? The storyboard is a tool used to describe the sequences of a multimedia product, specifying the textual and/or multimedia contents that are included in each sequence. It is very helpful during the conception and design phase, and it can be created on paper or directly on the digital support. Here is an example of storyboard. SEQUENCES TEXTS MUSIC (if the case) I’m Anna and I’m 16 years old... (indicate images) (indicate images) (specify texts) (indicate images) (specify texts) (indicate images) (specify texts) 077 Annex 2- How do you create a multimedia self-presentation? To create a self-presentation in a multimedia format, it is possible to use diferent tools, from those used for multimedia presentations to more specialized software. A very useful tool is Photo Story 3 (http://microsoft-photo-story.softonic.it/). It is a free and user-friendly programme, available on computers with Windows operating system. It allows the creation of videos from images, inserting motion and transition efects. Photo Story 3 also allows to record a brief audio that accompanies each image, but it is also possible to add a brief soundtrack or to produce a new one using the software. As for the procedures involved, the work is divided into 6 steps: 1- Opening the programme and choosing to create a new sequence; 2- Downloading and putting the images; 3- Adding the titles and the possible efects to the images; 4- Recording the audio comments and personalizing the duration and the movement; 5- Adding possible soundtrack music; 6- Saving the project and exporting the video sequence. 3.3 The Big Brain “LEARNING ON THE GAME, LEARNING THROUGH THE GAME” SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER At the end of the activity and before the inal evaluation, we suggest to ask students to think about the avatar that they have chosen for the “Big Brain” Game. The teacher asks the students to connect to the game and select an avatar (if they have not done it yet) and then ill in the related form. The relections written on the form must be shared and discussed in class at the end of the activity. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDENTS Now you are ready to confront with your avatar in Big Brain. Choose your avatar in the “Me” section. Observe carefully the characteristics of the available avatars and choose the avatar that better represents you. If you have already chosen an avatar, go to the next step. 078 The choice of an avatar is (almost) never casual…Try to think about your choice and ill in the following form: Chosen avatar Rejected avatar Desired avatar Avatar in transformation NAME SURNAME (specify) I chose this avatar because … (indicate two reasons at least) I rejected the other avatars because… (indicate two reasons at least) If I had the possibility to choose among an indeinite number of avatars, I would have chosen (indicate two reasons at least) If I had to choose an alternative avatar, I would choose … (indicate two reasons at least) Share your relections with your class and discuss them with the teacher and with your schoolmates. 079 3.4 EVALUATION At the end of the activity, the teacher can provide students with the following self-evaluation grids, one or more according to the activity carried out. Once they are illed in, there will be a debate in class in order to compare the results. Evaluation Activity A ONE, NO ONE AND ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND… INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concepts A) Yes, for example… (ill in) of (online/oline) identity and B) No, because… (ill in) role? Did I understand the relaA) Yes, for example… (ill in) tion between (online/oline) B) No, because… (ill in) identity and contexts? Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I actively contribute to the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively participate in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debates? B) No, because… (ill in) Identity card for friendship (with regard to your individual performance) Is the identity card clear and A) Yes, for example… (ill in) efective in its purposes? B) No, because… (ill in) Is the identity card clearly ad- A) Yes, for example… (ill in) dressed to a speciic audience? B) No, because… (ill in) Can the identity card be improved? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) 080 Evaluation Activity B SHOW ME YOUR AVATAR AND I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE! INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) group work? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debates? B) No, because… (ill in) Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) avatar? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) personal proile? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) (online) false identity? B) No, because… (ill in) Correspondences and argumentations (with regard to your individual performance) Did I ind at least two (avatar- A) Yes, for example… (ill in) proile) correspondences? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I indicate at least two reaA) Yes, for example… (ill in) sons to justify the correspondB) No, because… (ill in) ences found? Did I indicate at least one of the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) possible consequences in case B) No, because… (ill in) of false identity declared? 081 Evaluation Activity C ME IN 5 SHOTS INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation (with regard to your individual performance) Was I active in the activity A) Yes, for example… (ill in) suggested? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) Awareness and comprehension (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) self-presentation? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand which A) Yes, for example… (ill in) elements are used to B) No, because… (ill in) emphasize a self-presentation? Did I understand the importance of the audience A) Yes, for example… (ill in) whom this self-presentation is B) No, because… (ill in) addressed to? Multimedia self-presentation (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand how a A) Yes, for example… (ill in) storyboard is created? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand how to assemble in an efective way A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the diferent components of a B) No, because… (ill in) multimedia presentation? Does my self-presentation A) Yes, for example… (ill in) succeed in communicating a B) No, because… (ill in) clear and coherent message? Is my self-presentation A) Yes, for example… (ill in) convincing? B) No, because… (ill in) 082 UNIT FOUR: PRIVACY 4.1 AIMS In the era of Facebook, the virtual square where everything is potentially visible to everybody, it is not easy to explain to young people what privacy is and why it should be protected. Most probably, adults that have a teenager among their contacts, who can be their child or their friends’ child or their student and so on, have bumped into some pictures with a very disputable meaning where the teenager himself/herself or one of his/her friends is portrayed in secret places, such as the shower bath, in saucy positions and half-naked. If you try to highlight the anomaly, the teenager could be labbergasted, considering his/her action as if it was something normal, something that: “everybody does, what’s the problem?”. On the one hand , there are linguistic and conceptual diiculties: the specialized vocabulary used to talk about privacy refers to notions that are not easy to understand (especially for teenagers), and to words that do not belong to the common language. On the other hand, the new generations seem to ind it hard to understand the amazement of the adult, as if they could not perceive the problem as such. As a matter of fact, privacy is not a static concept, but a dynamic one: the border between public and private, between what can be shown and what cannot, changes over the time. Furthermore, this concept is strongly inluenced by the socio-cultural context and by the situations: showing somebody’s breast in everyday life in some African areas is not shocking, while showing somebody’s breast in the ofice in every European country would cause reactions of surprise. At times, anonymity is necessary to preserve the freedom of speech: when freedom is forbidden, anonymity becomes the only way to allow the circulation of ideas and reduce personal risks. Given this situation, that is getting more and more complex and articulated as new electronic devices make easier to publish and spread information, how is it possible to manage your online proile? 083 How much and which personal information should be shared or not? In which contexts? What limit should be adopted? In one word: how to protect your online privacy? This unit tries to promote students’ abilities to manage their online personal information in order to protect their security, being able to evaluate the risks and the opportunities; at the same time, it wants to make students aware and act in the web respecting other people’s privacy. In brief, the unit aims at developing the following knowledge and abilities/skills: • Understanding of the concept of privacy and related notions • Understanding of the concept of privacy in Internet and in social networks* • Understanding of the positive and negative implications of online privacy • Ability to manage in an autonomous way their personal online information • Ability to protect their privacy when interacting online • Ability to respect somebody else’s privacy when interacting online STRUCTURE, PREREQUISITES AND TOOLS The unit is articulated into three activities: the irst one is dedicated to familiarize with the specialized vocabulary on the theme of privacy; the second one concerns the management of online personal information; the third one focuses on the respect of everybody’s privacy. The three activities deal with diferent issues connected to online privacy, with attention oriented both towards the positive aspects (privacy as a self-protection) and the problematic ones (violation of somebody else’s privacy). The teacher can decide whether to carry them all out or just one or two. The irst two activities may require one or two classes. The third activity is more complex and requires at least three classes. Students are required to be able to use web browsers as well as word processing and multimedia presentation tools. As for the third activity, at least 1 PC every 2 students and an Internet connection are required. The availability of an interactive whiteboard in the classroom can facilitate the activity of sharing relections. 084 UNIT OVERVIEW Brief description Key words Target Duration Prerequisites Modality Materials and tools Software TITLE: PRIVACY The unit proposes three activities aimed at developing students’ awareness on private/public issues. It also promotes the ability to protect one’s own or somebody else’s online data Privacy, sensitive data, personal information, use of public/private information Students aged 14-16 and older Total duration: 17 hours Activity A - “A glossary for privacy”: approximately 4 hours Activity B - “To be or not to be… online?”: approximately 4 hours Activity C - “Privacy: advice for the users”: approximately 8 hours The Big Brain - “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: approximately 30 minutes Evaluation: 30 minutes Being able to use a browser, and word processing/multimedia presentation software Activity A - “A glossary for privacy”: group work Activity B - “To be or not to be… online?”:group work Activity C - “Privacy: advice for the users”: group work The Big Brain - “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: individual work Evaluation: individual work At least 1 PC every 2 students; Internet connection; board; paper and pens Activity A - “A glossary for privacy”: no speciic software is required Activity B - “To be or not to be… online?”: no speciic software is required Activity C - “Privacy: advice for the users”: multimedia presentation tools could be used 085 4.2 ACTIVITIES Activity A A GLOSSARY FOR ONLINE PRIVACY AIM The aim of this activity is to make students familiarize with online and oline privacy issues starting from the speciic vocabulary of this ield. As a start, students are asked to think about the concept of privacy, through a class discussion, and then to create a glossary on online privacy, explaining some keywords suggested by the teacher, such as: privacy, personal data, sensitive data, informed consent etc. At the end of the activity, students are asked to share and collectively check their work, with the help of a grid, in order to create a common glossary on privacy. SOME BASIC INFORMATION ON PRIVACY The vocabulary that deals with the concept of privacy is not of easy and immediate understanding, especially for children. With these brief notes, we want to give some introductory elements for a better use of some words and concepts. In particular, we will focus on the following terms: consent, personal information, sensitive data, guarantor, safety measures, privacy (source: http:// www.garanteprivacy.it). (Informed) Consent Informed consent refers to the person who has clearly expresses his/her will to accept a certain treatment of its personal information, in accordance with the information provided by the responsible for the data treatment. Personal data Personal data is the information that identiies a person in a direct way (such as: name and surname, address or tax code) but also indirectly (such as the case of a picture that portrays a person with some friends, the recording of the voice, vocal prints or ingerprints). Sensitive Data Sensitive data requires a particular attention because they refer to personal information such as: religious belief, political opinions, support to political parties, trade unions or associations, health conditions and sexual habits, etc. 086 Authority The Authority for the protection of the personal data is an independent organization created in all the countries of the European Union, as requested in the Community Directive 95/46/CE. The aim of these organisations is “ensuring the protection of the rights and of the fundamental freedoms in the treatment of personal data and in the respect of the dignity of the person”. Security Measures We refer to diferent types of intervention (for example, at organizational level) and tools (for example, use of Internet irewall, antivirus programmes, cookies control. For details, see the activity C), used to ensure that personal and/or sensitive data are not destroyed or lost, that only authorized people can access them and that no treatment against law is applied. Privacy Today this term is used to indicate both the right to protect the private sphere and control the use and the circulation of personal data. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of privacy, asking students some questions, such as: • Have you ever heard about “privacy”? If so, on what situations? • Do you have any personal information that you don’t like to share with other people? • Do you have any personal information that you usually share with other people? • Is there any diference between the online publication of your personal information and its oline difusion? If so, what are they? During the debate, the teacher summarizes what emerges, writing down on the blackboard some concepts and information, such as: a) key words used to deine the concept of privacy; b) list of personal information that students are not willing to share publicly; c) list of personal information that students are willing to share publicly; d) diferences found between the concept of online and oline privacy. 087 It is important to keep this summary as it will be used again at the end of the activity for a class debate. 2. Work After stimulating relection about the concept of privacy, students are asked to create a glossary about privacy. Students are divided into groups made up of 5-6 members. The teacher introduces the activity explaining what a glossary is and suggesting the words to be deined (no more than 3-4 words per group), that is: • Informed consent • Sensitive data • Personal data • Authority • Disclaimer • Privacy • Safety measures For each word assigned, the groups must give a deinition of 2/4 lines (maximum). To search for the information, students can use diferent sources: a) Internet websites, such as: for Italy, http:// www.garanteprivacy.it; for Austria, http://www.dsk.gv.at; for Germany, http://www.bfdi.bund.de/Vorschaltseite_DE_node.html; for Romania, http://www.dataprotection.ro; b) books or print material suggested or provided by the teacher; c) interviews to the experts (in case that the school is able to organize a small event about this issue). 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each group shares with the class the outcomes of its work. The teacher provides each group with a grid (Annex 1) containing the deinition of the words of the glossary and asks the students to compare them with the deinitions given by the groups and eventually review them. The most efective deinitions are written on a poster. The activity ends with the comparison between what emerged from the initial debate as summarized by the teacher and the inal glossary written on the poster, drawing the attention on the diferences and the aspects that were clariied and better explained through the online research. 088 MATERIALS Annex 1 – The words of privacy Here you can ind the deinitions of some words used when we talk about privacy. Compare your deinitions with the ones found in Table 1 and eventually improve them. WORD DEFINITION Explicit manifestation, by the interested person, of its will to accept a certain treatInformed ment of his/her personal data, in accordance with the information provided by the consent responsible for the data treatment. Information that identify the person, such as name and surname or address, but also Personal data photo or recording of the voice. Really delicate information about the person, such as religious belief, political opiSensitive data nion, state of health, etc. Authority Independent authority whose aim is to guarantee the protection of personal data. Written declaration in which the person authorizes the publication (on Internet, on a Agreement book, on an exhibition, etc.) of its image. Today this word is also used to talk about the right of protection both of the private Privacy sphere and of the control of the use and the circulation of the personal data. Organizing and technical devices (for example, irewall Internet, antivirus programmes, appropriate browser’s privacy settings) used to ensure that the personal Safety measures and/or sensitive data are not destroyed or lost, and that they are used according to the law. Activity B TO BE OR NOT TO BE…ONLINE AIM The aim of this activity is to make students aware about the risks and the beneits related to the online sharing and difusion of personal information and also to promote their ability to manage them autonomously. As a start, students are asked to think about their personal (unpleasant or pleasant) experience connected to the difusion of personal information, and then to analyze the type of information contained in two online proiles in order to evaluate the risks and the beneits of their publication. At the end of the activity, students are asked again to think about their personal (unpleasant or pleasant) experience, highlighting the possible consequences. 089 PRIVACY IN THE SOCIAL NETWORK SITES ERA The end of privacy is being increasingly associated to the raise of Social Network Sites (SNS). Why? We will try to briely explain it, starting from the deinition of social network. Generally speaking, we can deine a SNS as an environment speciically created and implemented to support and develop friendships. Some typical examples are MySpace, Linkedln, Twitter and Facebook, this latter being currently the most famous one with more than 900 million users (Facebook, 2012). In the literature on SNS, three elements are indicated as characteristics of these environments: • Presence of an electronic space where the user can create a personal proile and show it publicly; • Possibility to create a list of contacts, that is a network of users where users can communicate and interact; • The possibility to navigate through the list of contacts created by the users that belong to our contacts. In brief, in order to be in a SNS users need to make public a certain amount of personal information. If we consider this together with other characteristics of the Internet, such as persistence and searchability, the situation becomes even more problematic as far as privacy is concerned. In particular, Boyd (2007), a United States researcher investigating these themes, suggests to take into consideration four typical aspects of the digital era in order to grasp the transformations of the concept of privacy: (1) persistence: everything that is published online persists over time, (2) searchability: it is possible to search on the web about anybody and ind his/her personal information; (3) replicability: it is possible to copy and paste information from a context to another; (4) invisibility of the public: we can never be sure about who the audience is. In other words, once we have created our online proile and entered our personal information, it will be online for a long time, or even forever, everybody will be able to search for it, take it (for example one of our photos) and share it with other people without our knowing. We will never know who will read what we publish. In this situation, the youngest ones seem to be more at risk given the easiness with which they publish personal information on the SNS. How to react then? A strategy typically suggested to protect online privacy is to work on the user himself/herself: he/she is the best “guardian” of his/her own privacy since it is him/her that publishes something and decides what security level to adopt in the settings of Internet services and SNS. 090 INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher makes a demonstration. The teacher connects to the Internet through an interactive whiteboard or a PC connected to a video projector, then he/she visits Flickr (http://www.lickr.com, a website where users can share and download photos), searches for the picture of a boy or a girl and downloads it on a PC. After that, the teacher opens a word ile and simulates the construction of a proile using the photo previously downloaded. The demonstration aims at showing the students that the appropriation and use of somebody else’s personal data, such as a photo, consists of a very simple procedure. At the end of the demonstration, the teacher starts a class debate, asking students questions, such as: • Have you seen how easy it is to get online possession of personal data and do whatever we want with them? What do you think? • Has it ever happened to you that somebody got possession of your data or diffused them, violating your privacy? Could you make an example? • Has it ever happened to you to violate other people’s privacy by difusing or getting possession of their personal information? Could you make an example? The teacher writes down on the board the main points emerged during the discussion in order to use them at the end of the activity as a subject of relection. 2. Work The activity continues with some relections on the positive and negative consequences that derive from the online publication of personal information. The class is divided into small groups (4-5 students maximum) and the students are asked to analyze two online proiles and the risks/opportunities involved using the grid provided (Annex 1). At the end of the analysis, each group will present its own results to the class, while the teacher will promote the discussion managing the debate as follows: • Match the groups by creating pairs, where the roles of “presenter” and “critical friend” are alternatively played; • Ask the “presenter” groups to show their work and the “critical friend” groups to write down at least one objection; • At the end of the presentation, the “critical friend” groups come in. • A further reply is given by the “ presenter” groups and then the teacher ends the debate. 091 3. Post-work The activity ends by taking into consideration the personal (unpleasant and pleasant) experiences, with regards to the difusion of personal information, emerged at the beginning of the activity. The teacher asks to go back and think about them once again, keeping in mind what was learnt during the activities, and possibly integrating them with other personal experiences that did not emerge at the beginning since they were not identiied as problematic. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Grid for the analysis of the risks and beneits of being online Here you can ind two people’s online proiles. Read them carefully and then, for each proile, ill in the following grid for the analysis of the proiles. Through this grid, students are asked to think about the risks and the beneits related to the publication or not of personal information PROFILE N. 1 About me I’m Monica Smith. I’m 16 years old and live in Brussels. I live with my parents in a small but nice house situated near the main square in Brussels, in the old town centre. I study art and fashion at the artistic high school “Joan Mirò”. My dream is to become a stylist :) I have already made some models that you can see on this website: www.monicasmith. net. In addition to design and fashion, I like to spend time with my girlfriends. I have many girlfriends, but I really hit it of with Soia and Claudia. Soia is 16 years old just like me and she lives near my house. During the summer we go out for an ice cream at 6 o’clock at Matisse’s. Claudia is younger. She is 15 years old, but she seems older as you can see on this picture (click here). She is beautiful, isn’t she? If you want one of my models you can write me at this email address: monicasmith@yahoo.com or you can call me on this number: +44 071 3457289. 092 PROFILE N. 2 About me Hi everybody! I’m an environmental engineer. I studied in Monaco, in Germany, where I got my Master in sustainable energies. I’ve always loved the environment, in particular I love woods, where I like to spend most of my spare time. I currently live and work in Stuttgart for a company that deals with the distribution of photovoltaic systems. I would like to change job and work in the ield of wind power production. This is the ield that really interests me! GRID FOR THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROFILES Proile n. ___ (specify) INFORMATION SHOWN IN THE ONLINE PROFILE Name YES NO Age YES NO Sex YES NO ANALYSIS OF THE RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES If the name is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the name is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the age is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the age is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the sex is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the sex is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 093 Address SI NO Telephone YES NO Mobile YES NO E-mail YES NO Job YES NO Hobbies YES NO If the address is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the address is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the telephone is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the telephone is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the mobile number is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the mobile number is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the email address is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the email address is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the job is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the job is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the hobby is indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the hobby is not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 094 Habits YES NO If the habits are indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------If the habits are not indicated, in which situations is it dangerous or useful? For whom? Make at least an example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Activity C PRIVACY: ADVICE FOR THE USERS AIM The aim of this activity is to deepen the topic of privacy and online security and attempt to get a global picture of the issue. At irst, students are asked to think about three typical situations, and then to prepare a short guide for the users ofering advice and suggestions for the protection of their online privacy. At the end of the activity, students should present their work to the class and discuss it in order to create a inal guide containing the students’ best suggestions. PRIVACY AND ONLINE SECURITY The problem of privacy and the Internet security does not concern only the personal information we decide to share online publicly, but also the information acquired by third parties through not always transparent systems. Indeed, many of the activities carried out on the Internet, from electronic commerce to newsgroup participation, are characterized by the collection of personal data about the users. This collection can happen in an explicit way by requesting to ill in electronic forms, or in a secret way as in the case of data logs and cookies. In the case of the explicit collection, the user is asked to ill in a form in exchange of free services, giving some personal data; this information is then catalogued and often used for sending commercial messages. In this case, the data collection is regulated by the laws in force in the diferent countries. However, the user’s personal information is often collected without his/her knowing through the use of data logs and cookies. The data log system When the user is connected on the Internet, the web server automatically tracks the user’s connections. These recordings are called logs. Their aim is to spy the users, but also to get information in order to create a user’s proile that can be used for commercial purposes. Another tool that allows to follow the traces left by the user is the cookie. 095 Cookies They are small programmes that record the information about user’s browsing. They can be used for diferent purposes, for example the manager of a website can recognize the user that visits his/her pages, control the frequency of the visits and then personalize the website according to the tastes revealed by the user during previous visits. In addition, they are often used by providers for the advertising by adapting their ofers to every single consumer. At the moment, at least in Italy and in some other countries, the use of cookies is based on a so called opt-out system, which means that the user can show only ex post his/her disagreement about the acquisition of his/her personal data through cookies. The latest Directive of the European Union, called E-Privacy (Directive 2009/136/CE) requires the modiication of the law in force in the diferent countries and the introduction of the opt-in system, that is the request of explicit consensus a priori. It also exists a third modality to unduly acquire Internet users’ data: phishing. Phishing This verb refers to the practice of catching information. This system is based on a kind of electronic fraud, consisting, for example, in sending emails in which, pretending to be a Bank or a Post Oice, the user is asked to insert personal data in order to keep on taking advantage of the services. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work The teacher introduces the activity by giving the students three diferent situations to relect on (Annex 1). These situations consist in three short scenarios about privacy issues where two characters decide to behave oppositely with respect to the raised issues. Students are asked to take a stand on the two options and to explain why. The three situations concern respectively: • the conscious management of their personal data when signing in for a chat; • the expression of automatically informed consent in the creation of email accounts; • the carefulness and cautiousness regarding attempts to steal data and phishing phenomena. At the organisational level, the teacher divides the students in pairs giving them the grid containing the three scenarios (Annex 1). Each pair reads the three situations, expresses its own preferences about how to behave and explains why. 096 The pairs’ work is then presented to the class and discussed with the other students, while the teacher writes on the whiteboard terms and key concepts emerging during the discussion. 2. Work At this stage, students have suicient elements to create a short guide about privacy addressed to Internet users and titled “Privacy: advice for users”. This guide should contain at least four or ive useful pieces of advice to protect online privacy. Each piece of advice should be followed by a brief explanation on procedures. Pieces of advice that the guide could typically contain are: (1) Use complex passwords, trying to combine letters and numbers; (2) Never use the same password (3) Never tell your password to third parties; (4) Don’t share superluous information; (5) Check what people write online about you. If you are worried about your information or photos published on other people’s websites, ask for their removal; (6) Read carefully the privacy statement before using any online service (creation of email accounts, registering to websites, download and installation of software etc. ); if the statement is missing or incomplete, it is better not to give personal data; (7) Set your Internet browser software on the average level of privacy; (8) Protect your data by installing an Internet irewall on your PC; (9) Check the safety of web pages; (10) Use the anti-phishing ilter. At the organisational level, students will work in small groups (4-5 students maximum). They can consult websites about the Internet security. The guide could be created by using a software for multimedia presentations. 3. Post work At the end of the activity, groups will introduce the guide they have created. The teacher writes on the whiteboard the points emerging during the presentation in order to organize a unique and complete guide, to be shared with the other schoolmates. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Situations Three situations you may have experienced in the past or may experience in the future are introduced below. Read the text carefully, discuss with your schoolmates and express your preference with regard to the two options proposed. Try to explain the reason why you chose that option. The more reasons you can give, the better the activity is! 097 SITUATION N.1 Alessia and Daniela want to register to a chat. While registering, the service provider asks them to specify the following information: date of birth, school attended, personal interests and a picture. Alessia provides all the data, commenting that nothing bad could happen. Daniela instead decides not to give them, because the privacy statement is missing. Who do you think is right? - Alessia is right: a chat is a virtual environment, who could ever hurt you! - Daniela is right: a chat is a virtual environment, but it is better not to give personal data without knowing how they will be used. Explain why ……………………………………………………………………………… ………………...........……………………………………………………………………… SITUATION N. 2 Andrea decides to create an email account, but being the irst time he creates an account, he asks Giovanni for help. While going through the various procedures, the two friends are asked at some point to accept the terms of service for the processing of personal data. Andrea stops and tells Giovanni that he wants to read the conditions. Giovanni, on the other hand, wants to accept without any reading in order to go on with the registration and create the email account quickly. Who do you think is right? - Andrea is right: privacy is a delicate issue, before accepting, it is better to read the statement! - Giovanni is right: nothing changes if you read it or not, you are just wasting your time, all the statements are the same! Explain why ……………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………...... SITUATION N. 3 Alice and Zoe’s grandfather received the following email: “Dear user, your password is about to expire. If you want to keep on using your online bank account, you need to update your password by inserting your personal data in this form. Best regards, your Bank”. Being unsure about how to proceed, the grandfather asks his granddaughters for help. After reading the message, Alice tells his grandfather he’d better call the bank to verify, while Zoe believes it is a normal request. Who do you think is right? - Alice is right: you need to be careful about electronic frauds - Zoe is right: you cannot live in paranoia! Explain why ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………... 098 4.3 The Big Brain “LEARNING ON THE GAME, LEARNING THROUGH THE GAME” SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER At the end of the activities and before the inal evaluation, the teacher asks to connect to the “Big Brain” online game, going to the location “My House| Topic: Social Network” and perform the activities proposed. In particular, the teacher asks students to answer the inal questions, adding a comment to each given reply and comparing the answers with those of other students in the “Discussion” section. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDENTS Now you are ready for the Big Brain challenges. Go to the location “My House Topic: Social Network”. Start by unmasking the undercover agents sent by Big Brain and eventually go to the next session. If you have already played in this location, try again. After having unmasked the undercover agents, reply to the two questions proposed in the game. ATTENTION: Add a comment to each given answer, ofering an explanation for your answers. 099 Finally, go to the “Discussion” section, search for a couple of posts opposite to your own and ask yourself: “Am I sure to be right? If so, what arguments could I bring to convince people that have diferent ideas from mine? Confront and discuss your opinion with your schoolmates and the teacher!”. 100 4.4 EVALUATION At the end of the activities, the teacher asks students to ill in the following grids for self-evaluation, one for each activity. Once they are illed in, there will be a class debate in order to compare the results. Evaluation Activity A A GLOSSARY FOR PRIVACY INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) privacy? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the notions relating to the concept of privacy A) Yes, for example… (ill in) (personal data, sensitive data, B) No, because… (ill in) informed consent, authority etc.) ? Did I understand the Internet A) Yes, for example… (ill in) implications for privacy? B) No, because… (ill in) Responsibility and participation (with regard to group activities) Did I actively contribute to the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively participate in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) A glossary for privacy (with regard to group activities) Does the glossary contain at least A) Yes, for example… (ill in) 3-4 relevant terms to talk about B) No, because… (ill in) privacy? Have the deinitions provided A) Yes, for example… (ill in) been taken from reliable and B) No, because… (ill in) revised sources? Are the deinitions provided correct (meaning they are similar A) Yes, for example… (ill in) to the deinitions of the expert B) No, because… (ill in) contained in the form)? 101 Evaluation Activity B TO BE OR NOT TO BE...ONLINE? INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Comprehension and awareness (with regard to individual activities) Did I understand how A) Yes, for example… (ill in) dangerous publishing personal B) No, because… (ill in) data can be? Did I understand when and according to which strategies A) Yes, for example… (ill in) personal data can be B) No, because… (ill in) published? Responsibility and participation (with regard to group activities) Did I actively contribute to the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) Analysis of the proiles (with regard to individual activities) Did I identify at least two A) Yes, for example… (ill in) situations at risk in the proile B) No, because… (ill in) analysis? Did I identify at least two A) Yes, for example… (ill in) useful situations in the proile B) No, because… (ill in) analysis? Was I able to make at least one example of the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) considered situations in the B) No, because… (ill in) proile analysis? 102 Evaluation Activity C PRIVACY: ADVICE FOR USERS INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Comprehension and awareness (with regard to your individual performance) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) online security? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) electronic fraud? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand how to protect A) Yes, for example… (ill in) my online privacy? B) No, because… (ill in) Responsibility and participation (with regard to group activities) Did I actively committ myself for A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the proposed activity? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) Privacy: a guide for users (with regard to group activities) A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Is the online privacy guide clear? B) No, because… (ill in) Is the online privacy guide A) Yes, for example… (ill in) complete? B) No, because… (ill in) Is the online privacy guide updated? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) 103 UNIT FIVE: AUTHORSHIP AND CREATIVITY 5.1 AIMS In the last years, all those people working in the school ield and/or in formal educational contexts, probably found themselves facing the so-called “copy and paste” phenomenon. It is a common practice which is frequently used by now, both by young and old students. Technologies are not to blame, but as digital contents can be reproduced in such an easy way, they certainly rise the temptation to follow this practice. Apart from some supericial interpretations that are intentionally addressed to demonize adolescents or technologies, there are several issues at stake. For example, are we sure that students understand the diference between “quoting” and “copying”? Are we sure that they know how to quote? What pushes students towards the practice of copy and paste in their use of the Internet as the only way to write their essays? And again, in the era of the shared production supported by 2.0 web technologies and by the social networks, how can we be sure about who is the author of what? Let’s take Wikipedia as an example: who are the authors of this unique lab of social production of knowledge? These questions make us relect on the fact that, if on the one hand old practices – such as that of copying – are still largely used, on the other hand new production mechanisms of knowledge emerge, together with a diferent way of considering the notion of “intellectual property”. The development of the Creative Commons licenses as well, which we will discuss several times during this unit, has been evolving in terms of how to conceive the so-called copyright. These are the main issues of this unit. But it is not just that. If we analyze the media production and its rules, we will also ind ourselves relecting on the issue of creativity. 104 Saying “You cannot copy!” to the students it is not suicient. It is important to involve them into creative activities in order to efectively catch their attention. Some questions that arise in this increasingly complex framework are: which is the best way to stimulate the students to creatively use the web respecting other people’s work? How to overcome the traditional oppositions (such as original vs. copied) in order to generate new ways of creative and fair remixes? This unit aims at promoting the ability of the students to properly and creatively use online multimedia texts and contents, both respecting the copyright and revising sources and materials in new personal and original ways. In brief, the unit aims at encouraging the development of the following knowledge and skills/abilities in the students: • Understanding of the concept of quoting (how to quote, why quoting) • Understanding of the concepts of copyright* and copyleft* • Understanding of the concept of creative revision, in opposition to the simple “copy and paste” practice • Ability to reuse the sources properly • Ability to take advantage of the Creative Commons* licenses • Ability to creatively revise online contents STRUCTURE, PREREQUISITES AND TOOLS The unit is divided into three activities. The irst one is dedicated to the so-called “electronic plagiarism” problem; the second one is about the knowledge of the terms of use of Creative Commons licenses; the third one focuses on the creative re-use of online contents respecting the terms of use. Altogether, the three activities deal with the diferent issues related to authorship and online creativity, both focusing on the positive aspects (creative re-use) and on the problematic ones (pillaging). The teacher can decide whether to carry out all of these activities or just one or two, keeping in mind that the third activity presumes the knowledge of the concepts dealt with in the previous activities. The irst two activities may require one or two classes. The third one is more complex and requires at least three classes. Students are required to be able to use web browsers as well as word processing and multimedia presentation tools. 105 At least 1 PC every 2 students and an Internet connection are required for these activities. The availability of an interactive whiteboard in the classroom can facilitate the activity of sharing relections. UNIT OVERVIEW Brief description TITLE: AUTHORSHIP AND CREATIVITY The unit proposes three activities that aim at developing awareness about the concepts of authorship and plagiarism, and at promoting creative abilities of remixing Key words Electronic plagiarism, Fair Use, Creative Commons, Open content, Remix Target Students aged 14-16 and older Total duration: 17 hours Activity A - “Copy and paste? No, Thanks!”: approximately 4 hours Activity B – “Learning the law”: approximately 4 hours Activity C - “A multimedia ad on the Internet”: approximately 8 hours The Big Brain: “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: approximately 30 minutes Evaluation: 30 minutes Being able to use a browser, and word/processing/multimedia presentation software. Activity A - “Copy and paste? No, Thanks!”: in pairs Activity B - “Learning the law”: in pairs Activity C - “A multimedia ad on the Internet”: group work The Big Brain “Learning on the game, learning through the game”: individual work Evaluation: individual work At least 1 PC every 2 students; Internet connection; board; paper and pen Duration Prerequisites Modality Materials and tools Software Acitivity A - “Copy and paste? No, Thanks!”: no speciic software is required. Activity B - “Learning the law”: a multimedia presentation software. Attività C - “A multimedia ad on the Internet”: a multimedia presentation software 106 5.2 ACTIVITIES Activity A COPY AND PASTE? NO, THANKS! AIM The aim of this activity is to make students relect on the so-called “electronic plagiarism” problem in order to guide them towards a proper use of the sources. Initially, students are asked to relect on the concept of “quoting” and to explicit how they usually quote other people’s works inside their own works. Secondly, they are asked to research three quotations in order to ind out who is the author, the title of the work and the year, and they are expected to write a brief text containing one of the quotations analyzed. At the end of the activity, students are asked to share the outcomes and to verify if quotations are reported correctly as sources in the texts. “ELECTRONIC PLAGIARISM” The phenomenon of the so-called electronic plagiarism, implemented through the famous “copy and paste” practice, has determined great concern during these years. The web development has encouraged the copying practice, since acquiring materials from the web has become easier and easier. A strategy used to face this phenomenon, especially in the United States, consists in using the “anticheating” software. Other authors, on the other hand, suggest that this issue should be sorted out in more structured ways, taking into consideration the psychological, emotional and cultural conditions that can push students to “copy”. Under the general term “plagiarism”, diferent situations can hide, from actual cases of fraud to a mélange of texts, without quoting the source. These are two diferent activities: fraud can be caused by emotional states such as panic and anxiety or by the lack of ethical principles. As for the mélange of texts, on the contrary, it can be caused by a lack of understanding or by the incapacity to express new issues using personal ideas. Another diferent situation is when the quotation is missing. Again, there can be diferent reasons for this: it is possible that students don’t know that sources must be quoted, or that they don’t know how to quote. Besides, the modes of quotations can vary from one culture to another, e.g. language is a shared treasure for the Afro-American community and quotation introduces a rupture element. 107 The concept of plagiarism itself is not taken for granted. In the Western countries, the post-modernity philosophers have severely criticized this notion, which would have been inconceivable without recalling the modern philosophy that laid the foundations for its conceptualization on a theoretical point of view. Finally, the Napster case is an example of how the current conception of the intellectual property rights cannot be applied eiciently to the network culture. So, which are the appropriate educational strategies that can be implemented in order to cleverly face this phenomenon? There can be diferent ways, but what really counts is planning – not repressing – educational actions that can encourage students to critically relect on their own cognitive practices and creatively exercise their own personal elaboration abilities, that is the opposite of the mere copying. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concept of quotation, asking students some questions, such as: • Do you know what “to quote” means? • Do you know how to quote in a text? Can you make an example? • Is it possible to quote only handwritten texts or online texts as well? • When quoting online texts, do you know how to quote them? • Apart from texts, is it possible to quote pieces of a song, of a ilm or of a video? During the debate, the teacher summarizes what emerges, registering in particular the examples of quotation proposed by the students. It is important to keep this summary, as it will be used again at the end of the activity for a class debate. 2. Work After having solicited the students to relect on the concept of quotation and on the ways each of them quotes texts or other contents, the teacher introduces an activity named “Hunting for quotations” (Annex 1), which aims at getting the students to exercise on how to use other people’s texts in their own works. 108 Students are organized in pairs. The teacher provides students with the form for the activity and explains the task. The activity is made up of two parts: RESEARCH: in the provided form, the students will ind 3 quotations from famous authors and/or texts. For each quotation, they have to ind - and specify it in the form -, the author (who?), the source of the quotation (where?) and the date of the text - the original one or the re-edition- (when?) WRITING: once the sources are identiied, students are asked to produce a brief work of about 15-20 lines using one of the identiied quotations Students can use the Internet for the research of the quotations. Before starting the activity, the teacher should examine the texts, in order to identify bibliographic references which could be helpful when giving a feedback to the students at the end of the activity. Anyway, the irst quotation is taken from the “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle, the second one from “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway, and the third one from the famous speech by Martin Luther King delivered on the August 28th, 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial of Washington at the end of a protest march for civil rights. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each pair shares in class the outcomes of its own work. The teacher writes on the board the quotations and the way they have been incorporated in the students’ texts. The teacher compares the initial annotations about how to quote with those collected at the end of the activity in order to underline diferences and similarities. Then, the teacher explains how to quote in the texts, using – in case – correct examples made by the students. The activity ends with a shared relection on the inadequacy of the “copy and paste” practice and a self-correction exercise, in which each pair reads the text again and modiies it following the instructions provided by the teacher. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Hunting for quotations In the following table, you will ind a list of quotations from famous people. In the same way as a detective, try to ind out who said or wrote these sentences, where and when. It is advised to use the Internet for your search. 109 QUOTATIONS WHO? WHERE? WHEN? “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves.” “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.” Now that you ended your search, try to write a brief essay of about 15-20 lines, quoting one of these sentences. At the end of the activity, discuss about your work with your teacher and your schoolmates. Activity B LEARNING THE LAW AIM The aim of this activity is to draw the students closer to the concepts of Copyright, Copyleft and Creative Commons. As a start, students are asked to relect on their personal experiences about the use of Internet multimedia contents, and then they are asked to analyze three cases of use of material released under the license of Creative Commons, in order to understand which behaviors are allowed and which ones are not allowed, with regard to the conditions of use established by the author. At the end of the activity, students are expected to relect on their personal experiences and to evaluate the relevancy of their own practices and actions on the basis of what they just learned. COPYRIGHT, COPYLEFT, CREATIVE COMMONS Creative works (such as books, ilms, music etc.) are protected by the Copyright. This protection consists in a series of exclusive rights of economic use of the work 110 and of moral rights that protect the author’s personality. In the last years, another view of these issues has been imposing through the concept of copyleft. The Copyleft is intended as a legal clause system that does not bring into question the whole concept of Copyright but, basing on this concept, provides a diferent interpretation, assigning rights to people in a diferent way. For example, in the Copyright, most of the rights, including reproduction and modiication, belong to the author, whereas in several Copyleft licenses these rights are transferred to the user. Following the copyleft footsteps, in 2001, Lessig and others founded Creative Commons (CC, http://creativecommons.org), a no proit organization addressed to the ideation and maintenance of open content licenses. Today CC licenses are very well known: Wikipedia and other contents sharing websites (e.g. Flickr or Slideshare) use them. The clauses that regulate the rights granted to the users through CC licenses are: • BY – Attribution. This clause is always present (and it is the only mandatory one) and indicates that who wants to reuse the content needs to explicit the author of the work in order to attribute the obligatory intellectual property. If this is the only clause which is used, the author allows in this way other people to copy, modify and redistribute (even for proit-making) the original content, provided that the author is quoted. • NC – Non-commercial use. This clause indicates that the content cannot be used for economic purposes by people diferent from the author. The issue of the commercial use is a very delicate one. • ND – Non-derived works. The ND clause forbids the modiication, reworking, translation and reuse of the content under other forms. Consequently, the author is the only one that can rework, modify or translate his/her work. • SA – Share with the same license. Contents can be modiied or revised from a third party provided that these people use the same type of license for the products based on original content. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work As a start of the activity, the teacher opens up the debate in the classroom about the concepts of Copyright, asking students some questions, such as: • Have you ever heard about Copyright? If yes, on what occasions? • What does it mean that a ilm or a music soundtrack cannot be infringed? 111 • Has any of the people you know ever behaved in a way that led to Copyright infringement? Can you make an example? • Do you know which are the consequences if you infringe the Copyright? During the discussion, the teacher summarizes the data that emerge, writing on the whiteboard concepts and information, such as: a) key words used to deine the concept of copyright; b) list of examples of behaviors that infringe the copyright; c) list of possible consequences. It is important to keep this summary, as it will be used again at the end of the activity for a class debate. 2. Work The activity goes on by deepening the concepts of this unit. In particular, the teacher introduces the concept of Creative Commons, asks the students if they have ever heard about it and explains its function and characteristics. To this purpose, the teacher can use the information contained in the form of this activity and in the Creative Commons licenses website (http://creativecommons.org/licenses). It is important that the teacher lingers on the iconography typical of the Creative Commons. After having introduced the concept of Creative Commons, the teacher explains the activity that students will have to carry out in groups of 3-4. The activity is titled “Creative Commons: how to use them? Judge sentencing” (Annex 1). Students are asked to put themselves in the judge’s shoes, analyzing and evaluating three cases related to the use of digital materials released under the Creative Commons license. Moreover, they are asked to establish which uses are compatible with the conditions of use of the author and which ones are not, giving a inal verdict. At the end of the analysis and evaluation activity, each group will present in class its own outcomes, providing the reasons. At the same time, the teacher will foster the debate by organizing the discussion as follows: • Building the groups in order to create couples of groups where the roles of “presenter” and “evaluator” alternate; • Asking the “presenter” group to show their work and the “evaluator” group to express their consent/dissent, motivating their position; • A reply from the “presenter” group follows and the teacher has the inal word. 112 3. Post-work The activity ends by recalling personal experiences connected to the use and reuse of digital materials. The teacher asks to relect once again on this experiences by rereading them keeping in mind the things learned and by integrating them with other personal experiences that did not emerge at the beginning since they were not identiied as problematic, but they seem to be now. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Creative Commons: how to use them? Judge sentencing The multimedia contents that can be found on the Internet are published under speciic conditions that regulate their use. A particular type of license, that you have already heard about, is that of Creative Commons. In order to better understand how this license works, we suggest that you put yourself in the judge’s shoes and analyze the cases that are explained below. After their analysis, you have to pronounce a verdict about some behaviours related to the conditions of use, specifying whether they are pertinent or not. If you want to get information about the Creative Commons license, please visit the following website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses. CASE N.1 Lucia wants to create a Power Point presentation on the artistic beauties of Sicily. For this reason, she starts looking for some images on Flickr, a database of pictures and images. Through this search, she inds some beautiful pictures of the Greek temples situated on the Italian island. The pictures present the following icons to indicate the conditions of use: 113 Under these conditions of use, what are Lucia’s possible actions? LUCIA’S ACTIONS Lucia can use the picture, modify it and distribute it without necessarily quoting the author Lucia can use the picture, modify it and distribute it for commercial use only Lucia can use the picture, but she cannot modify it, translate it, or adapt it TRUE FALSE Verdict: If Lucia (specify the actions that are not allowed) …………………………, then she violates the conditions of use of the digital resource. CASE N.2 Antonio wants to create a musical base for a track he wants to play at the concert for the ending of the school year. He decides to search on YouTube to ind some track to remix. He only looks among the video released under the license of Creative Commons and he inds two with the following conditions of use: Under these conditions of use, what must/can Antonio do? ANTONIO’S ACTIONS Antonio can use a video, modify it and distribute it, but he must mention the author Antonio can use a video, modify it and distribute it, but for non-commercial use only Antonio can use a video, but under the conditions of use established by the author only TRUE FALSE Verdict: If Antonio (specify the actions that are allowed) …………………………, then he does not violate the conditions of use of the digital resource. 114 CASE N. 3 Giovanna found an online book published under Creative Commons license. The book is very interesting but it is written in a foreign language, so many of her friends cannot read it. In order to share the book, she decides to translate it. But before starting Giovanna veriies the conditions of use of the work and she inds the following clauses: Under these conditions of use, what must/can Giovanna do? GIOVANNA’ACTIONS TRUE FALSE Giovanna can use the text, by quoting the source, but she cannot translate it Giovanna can translate the text, but not for commercial use Giovanna can translate the text also for commercial use Verdict: If Giovanna (specify the actions that are not allowed) ……………………, then she violates the conditions of use of the digital resource. Activity C A MULTIMEDIA AD ON THE INTERNET AIM The aim of this activity is to stimulate students to creatively and respectfully use the online contents. Students are asked to think about a key message that they want to communicate on the Internet (in terms of opportunities and/or risks) and then create a multimedia ad on the identiied message, using the multimedia materials found online. At the end of the activity, students should present their work to the class and evaluate if the images or any other material used in the multimedia ad have been used respecting the conditions of use established by the authors of the materials reused. 115 OPEN CONTENTS: DATABASE, PORTALS, WEB SERVICES Today there are many database and web services that can be used for the research of multimedia digital contents released under the license of Creative Commons (CC) and/or for free use. The knowledge of these tools is important to avoid to take a chance on violating the copyright...maybe even without being aware of that! In this brief in-depth form we make a list of some useful websites where to ind audio, video or photos, that can be used under CC license or for free. As for the photos and the images, there are many resources, such as: • Flickr (http://ww.lickr.com): it is a very rich environment where to search for and share photos, characterized by the easiness of the use and a very wide community. Flickr is a collection of individual photos that can be shared and reused; it is free and it only needs the registration if you decide to start downloading, editing or tagging your digital images. • MorgueFile (http://www.morgueile.com): it contains free digital images, that can be used for commercial purposes, too. The archive includes more than 50 thousands images, organized by categories (Animals, Objects, People and Scenes), and in each category the user can make some searches. • Ourmedia.org (http://www.ourmedia.org): Ourmedia is a new online source in alpha version that collects every media content that wants to be shared and reused by more and more people. • OpenPhoto (http://www.openphoto.net): it is a community that was created with the purpose of unifying photographers and users in the sharing of pictures released under the license of Creative Commons. It contains a database with a license engine integrated in the open source platform. As for the music, it is possible to consult: • BeatPick (http://www.beatpick.com): in the last years it has collected a catalogue of quality tracks that can be used for ilms, tv and advertisement. With Beatpick.com it is possible to search for a track and then have it with the license of Creative Common in just a few minutes and online. Non-commercial projects can use music for free, provided that the credits are always speciied for Beatpick.com and for the musician. It has a useful search engine for music genres, vocal/instrumental, musical modality. As for the sounds, it is possible to consult: • Freesound (http://www.freesound.org): the aim of Freesound Project is the creation of a big collaborative database of sounds, released under Creative Commons license. Another service that is still being tested is: • CC Search (http://search.creativecommons.org): a specialized service for the 116 research of Web contents published under the Creative Common license. CC Search is still in beta and it supports thumbnail. It still has low quality in searching and supporting visual searches, but it will be surely improved. The use of these services may require the creation of an account by the user. This could be problematic with minors. Therefore, before using them, it is recommended to check the security. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pre-work The teacher introduces the activity, showing aims and purposes. In brief, the teacher communicates to the students that they will have to create a multimedia ad on the Internet, by using the multimedia contents found online. Where to start from? The starting point could be a brainstorming about the Internet and its aspects, with questions such as: • What is the Internet for you? • Which are the main risks of the Internet? • Which are the main opportunities of the Internet? • Is there a key message you would like to communicate on the Internet? During the debate, the teacher summarizes what emerges, writing down on the blackboard some concepts and information and taking notes of the names of the students that have suggested them (in order to create groups). At the end of the brainstorming, the teacher creates groups made up of 4-5 students according to their ainities of ideas/suggestions/interests that have emerged during the brainstorm. 2. Work At this point, students have been divided into small groups. The aim of each group is to create a multimedia ad on the Internet in order to communicate the value that the Internet has for them to the external world. This message can focus on a negative or a positive aspect; it can be metaphorical or explicit; it can be based on static or moving images; there can be music, a narrating voice only, or silence; it can be made by images only or some text, too. There are many possible combinations, but the most important thing is to create an efective and fair multimedia ad on the Internet. This means that it should communicate in an efective way a concept on the Internet using online contents that can be reused under the conditions of use established by the author. For this 117 purpose, students can use a brief guide for advice (Annex 1). In addition, the teacher should suggest the students some websites where to start from and where to ind multimedia materials that can be used without any restrictions. At the practical level, students should: • Establish roles and tasks inside each group (for example, coordinator, writer, who search for the images etc.); • Plan the agenda, with time and tasks; • Deine, especially in the initial phase, the idea they want to work on; • Create a storyboard to support the planning and achievement of the multimedia ad; • Consult online database providing free images and multimedia contents. 3. Post-work At the end of the activity, each group shows its own multimedia ad; explains which are the conditions of use of the multimedia materials reused in the multimedia ad; demonstrates to have respected the conditions of use established by the authors of the contents reused. Finally, each group decides under which conditions to publish online their multimedia ad on the Internet, by selecting one of the options of the license of Creative Commons. MATERIALS Annex 1 – Advice for a fair and efective multimedia ad Do you have to create a multimedia ad on the Internet? Here there are some suggestions! Advice 1. One clear message is better than many confused messages…in other words: work on a main idea, attention is a precious resource! Advice 2. Many does not mean better…which means: it is not true that the use of many images or many animations make the communication more efective. It is better to select fewer images but more meaningful! Advice 3. Verify the user license: before using any content, verify which are the conditions of use established by the author and regulate your actions according to this. Advice 4. Consult a database of free or open multimedia materials…there are many database where to ind multimedia contents (audio, images, videos) that are free or released under the license of Creative Commons. Use them! Advice 5. As for the images, use Flickr (http://www.lickr.com) ...here you can ind many photos; choose the option that allow you to search only the contents released 118 under the license of Creative Commons and go on with your work . Advice 6. As for the music, use BeatPick (http://www.beatpick.com)... A catalogue of quality tracks that can be used for ilms, tv and commercials. Advice 7. As for the sounds, use Freesound (http://www.freesound.org) … a big collaborative database of sounds, released under the license of Creative Commons. 5.3 The Big Brain “LEARNING ON THE GAME, LEARNING THROUGH THE GAME” SUGGESTIONS FOR THE TEACHER At the end of the activity and before the inal evaluation, the teacher asks to connect to the “Big Brain” online game, to revise all the locations and to relect on the game with more aware eyes, trying to think about what they have learned through the game. In order to share it with peers, the teacher invites students to summarize what they have learned through the production of a promotional ad about the Brig Brain, made up of 5 words, and share it in the section: “Discussion”. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDENTS Now you are ready to face the biggest challenge! Go on the Big Brain game and take a look around… revise every location, rethink about the game with more aware eyes and ask yourself: “What have I learnt with the Big Brain?” Try to ind an answer in just 5 words and create a promotional ad (like a slogan or an advertising message) on this game! 119 5.4 EVALUATION At the end of the activities, the teacher can propose students the following self-evaluation grids, one or more according to the activities done. Once they are illed in, there will be a class debate in order to compare the results. Evaluation Activity A COPY AND PASTE? NO THANKS! INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Knowledge and awareness (with regard to the individual activities) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) quotation? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand how to quote A) Yes, for example… (ill in) in a text? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the negative A) Yes, for example… (ill in) implications of copy and paste? B) No, because… (ill in) Responsibility and participation ( with regard to group activities) Did I actively contribute to the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively participate in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) Hunting for quotations ( with regard to group activities) Have we found at least two of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) the three quotations? B) No, because… (ill in) Have we elaborated coherently A) Yes, for example… (ill in) a text integrating one of the B) No, because… (ill in) three quotations? Have we inserted the quotation A) Yes, for example… (ill in) in the text in an adequate way? B) No, because… (ill in) 120 Evaluation Activity B LEARNING THE LAW INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Responsibility and participation ( with regard to group activities) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Copyright? B) No, because… (ill in) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) Copyleft and Creative Commons? B) No, because… (ill in) Comprehension and awareness ( with regard to individual activities) Did I actively contribute in the group work? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively participate in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) Analysis of the cases and of the verdicts ( with regard to group activities) Have we interpreted in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) correct way case 1? B) No, because… (ill in) Have we interpreted in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) correct way case 2? B) No, because… (ill in) Have we interpreted in the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) correct way case 3? B) No, because… (ill in) 121 Evaluation Activity C A MULTIMEDIA ADD ON THE INTERNET INDICATOR ANSWERS TEACHER’S COMMENTS Awareness and comprehension ( with regard to individual activities) Did I understand the concept of A) Yes, for example… (ill in) creative writing (as opposed to B) No, because… (ill in) copy and paste)? Did I understand the concept of respectful use of multimedia A) Yes, for example… (ill in) contents with reference to the B) No, because… (ill in) conditions of use established by the author? Responsibility e participation ( with regard to individual behaviour) Did I actively commit myself in the activity suggested? A) Yes, for example… (ill in) B) No, because… (ill in) Did I actively contribute to the A) Yes, for example… (ill in) class debate? B) No, because… (ill in) A multimedia ad on the Internet ( with regard to group activities) Is the multimedia ad efective A) Yes, for example… (ill in) on the communicative ield? B) No, because… (ill in) Are the multimedia contents A) Yes, for example… (ill in) used appropriately? B) No, because… (ill in) Are the multimedia contents used according to the condiA) Yes, for example… (ill in) tions of use established by the B) No, because… (ill in) author? 122 GLOSSARY AVATAR: in the Internet slang, it refers to the digital alter ego of users who interact in virtual environments using an image to represent himself/herself. BLOG: it derives from the contraction of the words “web” and “log”, and it refers to a type of software created to facilitate online writing and publishing. A blog can be used to quickly writing notes, thoughts, relections, and every kind of text within a web page. COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: it is a type of communication that occurs through the use of a networked computer. It is often based on written communication (e-mail, chat, web forum), but it can also make use of the audio-visual channel (audiovisual conferencing). COOKIES: small programmes used to store information while a user is browsing a website. COPYLEFT: it is an alternative to copyright, and it refers to a series of legal clauses which do not fully deny the copyright, but do give diferent interpretation, and assign rights in a diferent way to subjects. COPYRIGHT: it refers to creative intellectual property works, (e.g., books, ilms, music) and it consists of a series of exclusive rights to inancially beneit from those works and of moral rights to protect the author’s personality. CREATIVE COMMONS: it is a type of license allowing authors to transfer some of their own copyright rights to third parties, for example: the use of the original work and the derived ones by simply attributing authorship (Attribution); an exclusively non-commercial use (Noncommercial); an exclusive use of identical and not derivative works (No Derivative Works); inally, the use of derivative works exclusively under the same license as the original one (Share Alike). 123 CYBERBULLYING: it refers to violent, annoying, and aggressive behaviours by means of electronic communication tools, such as emails, forums, chats, social networks, and so on. DIGITAL DIVIDE: this term refers to the gap existing between those who have access to the Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) and those who do not. More speciically, it refers to the gap existing among individuals, organizations and geographical areas not only with reference to the ICT (technological access), but also with reference to the knowledge and abilities required to beneit from ICT (social access). DIGITAL STORYTELLING: this technique, created by Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley in the ‘90s, is based on the combination of narration and multimedia languages. E-ENGAGEMENT: it refers to new forms of engagement and active citizenship, allowed by the use of new digital media and inspired by the principles of the <<participatory culture>> (> Jenkins). E-EXCLUSION: it refers to a type of electronic exclusion determined by the efects of digital divide (see Digital Divide). E-INCLUSION: since the new millennium, this term has established in the European institutional vocabulary with reference to policies and actions aimed at creating “a global information society” with a particular emphasis on the disadvantaged social groups. FLAMING: this term refers to hostile online behaviours expressed by the use of ofensive messages and insults. LURKING: this term refers to users registered to a web forum, for example, but who never or rarely participate in the discussion by sending their own contributions, while reading, on the contrary, messages posted by other users. MALWARE: a virus created with the only purpose of damaging the PC where it runs. NETIQUETTE: short for “network etiquette”. A set of good behaviour rules to be observed when interacting on the Internet. OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES: online teaching materials and resources, freely and openly available for everyone to use and for educational purposes. 124 PARTICIPATORY CULTURE: this term dates back to Jenkins et al. (2006) and means «a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby experienced participants pass along knowledge to novices. In a participatory culture, members also believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at least, members care about others’ opinions of what they have created) >> (p. 3). PHISHERS: this term refers to people attempting to organize electronic frauds, for example by pretending to be the Bank or the Post, and asking the user to insert his/her own personal data in order to guarantee an ongoing service. PODCASTING: this term refers to those techniques aimed at creating, sharing and enjoying audio and/or visual materials online. The key element is a more or less audio and/or video track which can be directly enjoyed online or downloaded for oline listening or viewing. SEARCH ENGINE: it is a tool designed to search for online information by typing one or more key words. It functions automatically without human ilters. SEWCOM: it is an acronym for “Search the Web with Concept Maps”. It is a method which makes use of concept maps as a meta-cognitive instrument to search for, create and edit online information. SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (SNS): this term refers to a particular category of sites whose main characteristic is that users’ proiles and comments posted on their walls are a searchable virtual social network. SPAMMING: this term refers to every attempt of sending messages by the Internet to someone who cannot choose whether to receive them. STORYBOARD: it is a tool used to describe the sequences of a multimedia product by specifying for each sequence its textual and/or multimedia components. TROLLING: in the Internet slang, it refers to the behaviour of users interacting with other users by means of nonsense, provoking or of topic messages in order to disturb the communication and to fuel conlicts. VIRUS: computer viruses are a particular type of software which runs on the user computer without his/her knowing, consequently infecting or damaging the PC and thus achieving the purpose it was created for. 125 WEB 2.0: this term was coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2005, and it is used to indicate the second generation web, which includes software that allow users to communicate, share resources and socialize online, thus allowing them not to be mere users but also contents makers. WEBQUEST: it is an activity of research based on the partial or full use of computer resources available on the web. WIKI: it is a website allowing more users to create and modify its pages at the same time and in a cooperative way. WIKIQUETTE: a set of good behaviour rules to be observed when interacting in a wiki. 126 BIBLIOGRAPHY BENNETT W. L., Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age, in L. W. BENNETT (ed), Civic Life Online, Cambridge, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2007, pp. 1–24. BRADLEY K., Internet Lives: Social Context and Moral Domain in Adolescent Development, «New Directions for Youth Development», 108, 2005, pp. 57–76. BUCKINGHAM D., Beyond technology. Children’s learning in the age of digital culture, Polity Press, Cambridge 2007. BUCKINGHAM D. (ed), Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL 2008. BURBULES N. C., Digital Texts and Future of Scholarly Writing and Publication, «Journal of Curriculum Studies», 30, 1, 1998, pp. 105-124. CALVANI A., FINI A., RANIERI M., Assessing digital competence in Secondary Education – Issues, Models, Instruments, in M. LEANING (ed), Issues in Information and Media literacy. 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Controverses, déis et perspectives, Bruxelles 2009. 129 SITOGRAPHY • Canadian Center for Digital and Media Literacy: mediasmarts.ca • CLEMI: www.clemi.org • Digital Competence Assessment: www.digitalcompetence.org • EU Kids Online: www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/Home.aspx • European Charter for Media Literacy: www.euromedialiteracy.eu • Euromeduc: www.euromeduc.eu/?lang=en • MED (Italian Association on Media Education): www.mediaeducationmed.it • Mediappro: www.mediappro.org • Media and Children 5th World Summit: www.5wsmc.com • Media-Educ: www.media-educ.org • Media and Information literacy and Intercultural Dialogue: www.milidweek.com • New Media Literacies Project: newmedialiteracies.org • On Air – The European project on Media Education: www.onair.medmediaeducation.it • Programme d‘education critique aux risques liés à l’usage d’Internet: www.educaunet.be • SAFT: www.saftonline.org • Safer Internet Programme: ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/index_en.htm • NAMLE: namle.net 130 Maria Ranieri She is an Assistant Professor of Educational Methods and Technology at the University of Florence. Her main research areas include theory and methodology relating to media and technology in education, as well as work around teachers’ practices and students’ learning. She is member of SIRD (The Italian Association of Educational Research) and of the executive council of MED (The Italian Association of Media Education). She is also member of the editorial staf of the MED journal «Media Education: studi, ricerche, buone pratiche».