Curriculum
Twenty-First Century Challenges: Grades K-1
Cyberspace at School
Download Student Sheet(s) for printout in PDF format.
Read a Letter to Educators about twenty-first century challenges from CyberSmart!
Overview
Children explore the concept of cyberspace as a means of communicating with real people within their school.
Objectives
- Explain that cyberspace is a means of communicating with real people
- Draw pictures to show cyberspace connections between real people
National Educational Technology Standards for Students © 2007
Source: International Society for Technology in Education- Technology Operations and Concepts
- understand and use technology systems.
Home Connection
Download the Home Connection sheet related to this lesson.
Site Preview
No Internet site is used in this lesson.
Materials
- Activity sheet (1)
- School E-mail computer network
- Crayons; markers
Introduce
- Have children list all the ways they can send and receive messages (write, draw, telephone, fax, mail, etc.)
Teach 1
- Present the following to children: I'd like to tell Ms. (a teacher in a distant classroom) some important news. I can't go and tell her now, because I am teaching in this room. Ask: How will I get the message to her? Students may suggest using an intercom or sending a student with a written note.
- Explain that there is another way to deliver the news without anyone needing to leave the room - by sending the message through cyberspace using the computer.
- Invite children to watch you type a brief E-mail message, fill in the header information, and click the button to send it. OPTIONAL: Alert the recipient to watch for the E-mail and to reply as soon as it is received.
- Ask: Where did my message go? How did it happen? Guide children to use the word "cyberspace" in their responses.
Teach 2
- Ask: How could you send a message to another teacher in our school? To our principal? To the nurse? Guide children to recognize that messages can be sent through cyberspace to reach all of these people.
- Distribute the activity sheet. Have children think of the message you sent to another teacher and all the other real people they might send a message to through cyberspace and then draw a picture of the cyberspace connections between them. Encourage them to think imaginatively and show how people communicate by using computers.
Teach 3
- Invite volunteers to share their drawings and to explain how people in their school communicate through cyberspace. While there is no right or wrong way to draw cyberspace, children's pictures should show their understanding that cyberspace is a way for real people to communicate by using computers.
Assess
The following items assess student mastery of the lesson objectives.
- Ask: What can you do in cyberspace? (send messages to real people)
- Ask: What did your pictures show?
Extend
The following activity can be added for students who completed this lesson in a previous grade.
- Help children make a list of people beyond their school with whom they might communicate through cyberspace (for example, a friend in another town or an uncle very far away). Then have them draw the cyberspace connections between all these people, introducing the idea that cyberspace extends beyond their school to people using computers anywhere in the world.
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