Online Safety Board Games Lesson Plan: Identify Internet Safety Rules

Lesson Procedure:

1. Pose an open-ended question to get students thinking about the topic: Do you think the average student in your grade level understands how to stay safe online? Have volunteers share their opinions and experiences in pairs or in a whole-class discussion. Talk about how some students may think they understand online safety, but unwittingly put themselves at risk.
2. Tell the class they'll be creating board games to help other students think critically about their Internet practices, and to keep this information in mind as they learn about the topic.
3. Show the Online Safety movie. Consider turning closed captioning on to help students process the information. Pause throughout the movie for note-taking, asking questions, discussing key points, etc.
4. Share the Graphs, Stats, and Numbers on the Related Reading page, and talk about how the victimization of young people has changed from the crime researcher's first study in 2000 to the second study in 2005. Make predictions about what the next study might uncover.
5. Use the Quiz to prepare students for creating their games. Click on 'Review Quiz' which will confirm the correct answers as you go. Show one question at a time and facilitate discussion. You may choose to have students indicate their answer choices with a hand signal, and in instances of disagreement, ask volunteers to share their thinking.
6. Provide the materials for creating the game boards and instruct each group to create a game for their quiz questions. You may want to show examples of real game boards or photos of game boards online to give the class ideas.
7. Have students work in groups to create quiz questions for their internet safety board games. The questions should address specific scenarios that students often encounter that are related to the rules presented in the movie. You may want to have students type and print these or hand-write them onto index cards. You might also want them to create answer keys or a self-checking system for the game. Show the Activity page if students need help thinking of question topics.
8. Provide groups with time in or out of class to complete their games. Collect and assess the games to make sure the questions are appropriate and relevant.
9. Allow students to assemble in their groups once again and rotate through the games until they've had a chance to play each of the other groups' games.
10. Afterward, discuss the experience as a class and talk about which game questions were the most thought-provoking or caused the most controversy.
11. Revisit the initial question (Do you think the average student in your grade level understands how to stay safe online?) and have students share whether their opinions changed after viewing the movie and playing the games. Will they make any changes to their own Internet usage? What new precautions will they take? As an assessment, you may have students write a paragraph or essay on this topic.