Module 1: Health and Physical Education - health and wellbeing sub strand
Digital wellbeing must be considered seriously (Hui & Campbell, 2018), however it is equally important that online communication is not portrayed as merely a negative, risk-taking behaviour (Casa-Todd, 2018). In the following activities, students will develop an awareness of the impact, both positive and negative, that online communication can have on their relationships and strategies to manage these.
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What do you already know?
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While it is hoped that this module is a useful guide, it is important for you to be adaptive to the needs of your students - more time, for instance, may be spent discussing a particular activity of interest (Spina, 2017). To determine your students’ prior knowledge, ask your students to complete the following survey. This could be repeated at the conclusion of the unit to measure growth.
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Online presence
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Think, pair, share. Ask students whether their parents posted photos of them on facebook/instagram/another social media site when they were young (ISTE, 2013)? Do they still do this now? Are any of the photos embarrassing? How is this different to previous generations? Elicit the idea that - less photos were taken (film was expensive), ‘sharing’ was different (showing a photo album not publishing a photo online [Honeycutt, 2010a]), and access was more controlled (could see the person who was viewing the photo album).
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Watch ‘Amazing mind reader reveals his gift’ (Luca, 2012) and discuss with students their initial reactions.
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Display the school internet code of conduct that they signed when they enrolled. Remind students that they have agreed not to distribute personal information about themselves online such as their age, address, and phone number.
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To reinforce the permanency of things posted online and to consider their own image, ask students to google themselves (i.e. type their own name into google) (Nielson, 2011). Ask students to reflect on whether, if there was information about themselves, it was posted by them or someone else? If someone else, was permission sought? From just the information found through a google search, what image is portrayed of them? If time permits, students can repeat this activity with a family member/friend/celebrity/teacher’s name (this demonstrates what future employees may do).
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Explain to students that having an online presence is not a bad thing as a positive digital trail can in fact help their job prospects (Honeycutt, 2010a) however they do need to think carefully about the digital legacy they are creating (Honeycutt, 2010b).
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Students to play ‘interland mindful mountain’ (Google, n.d.) to consider who they should be sharing information online with.
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How much time to spend online?
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Brainstorm why people check their social media all the time. Consider factors such as being lonely, bored, FOMO (the ‘fear of missing out’). Brainstorm also the impact of always being on social media, such as possible depression from comparing oneself to others (TedxTalks, 2015).
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Complete lesson about impact on relationships (Common sense, n.d.).
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Watch ‘Tagged’ (Australian Government, a, n.d.). Discuss the far-reaching impact that the digital behaviour had for all the characters in the film.
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Practise being an upstander. Play the ‘The Lost Summer, The petition’ (Australian Government, b, n.d.)
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As students to make their own ‘pledge’ about the role they want social media to take in their lives and to create their own guidelines to help them to achieve this.
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What to do when things go wrong?
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Remind students that people can lie about their age and identity when online so they need to be careful when communicating with strangers (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2006).
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Teach the steps ‘stop, screenshot, block, tell, share’ (Lindsay & Davis, 2013).
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Students to map their ‘wellbeing network’ (Australian Government, c, n.d.) - people/organisations they turn to when they need help.
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Culmination of learning
To demonstrate their learning, students create an infographic about protecting one’s online wellbeing (they can use the pledge they wrote as a starting point). The infographic can be be posted on the students’ social media accounts, can be used as a screensaver on desktop computers in the school library, and can be printed as posters for the year 7 classrooms. This is an opportunity for authentic, positive use of digital technologies and social media (Gleason & Sam, 2018).
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