HIT: Teaching Internet to Kids (Very Long)

["Mary J. Soucie" <mjsoucie@HTLS.LIB.IL.US>]

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Dear Netters,
Hi!  i would like to thank all the generous folks who responded to my
"plea" for info. Sorry for the delay in this hit- I've been out of the
office for both work and personal reasons.  Anyway, here is the hit on ways
to teach the Internet to kids.  My orginal request was for grades K-6.  I
received almost as many requests for hits as replies. Hope thisinfo helps.
mjs

========================================================================
In response to your request on Pubyac: I teach Introduction to Internet
workshops for kids and parents at my public library.  I give the training
sessions about every 3-4 months as part of my children's programming.  So
far, I've done two workshops and I'm about to do a 3rd one next month.  The
1/2-hour workshop is done live using a laptop computer and projector.  I
think k-6 is too wide an age spread, my program is for 3rd graders and up
with an adult.  I've had one request for a younger age spread but haven't
made that jump yet.

My format in a nutshell: I explain what you can do with the Internet, how
to move around a website, touch briefly on domains and how they pertain to
site evaluation, and at the end, I add a word of caution about chat
rooms/e-mail as well as stressing parental supervision.  I allow about 15
minutes for questions and then turn them all loose to play on the Internet
using a short list of FUN WEBSITES as a handout.
=============================================================
I often have 4-6 graders, so I focus my presentation on local websites such
as the school district, town home page, or any other interesting local
angle.  It helps the kids remember and seems to grab interest more
quickly.  I'm hoping this will become a "no-brainer" for me so I can offer
them more often but we'll see.  The community response has been very
positive.
=============================================================
As a former school librarian, I often had to teach kids how to use the
Internet.  Disney.com is a great site to use because you can show them so
many different things like what links are and how to click on them and how
they change color once you've clicked on them.  Also, there is a link to
the Disney store.  We let the kids pick things they would like to order,
then guided them step-by-step into ordering, stopping before we actually
ordered, of course.  This allowed us to discuss things like the security
messages that pop up, the consequences of entering Mom & Dad's credit card
number to actually order something, and the importance of not entering
personal information about themselves.  We discussed the kinds of things
that are personal information: name, address, phone number, age, ss#, etc.
Kids hear all the time about the terrible, awful things that have happened
to people as a result of revealing their personal information to someone on
the Internet.  I always made it a point to *caution* kids about using the
Internet, but not to *frighten* them.  When working with teachers who will
be using the Internet in their classroom instruction, encourage them to
have websites they have examined already and guide children in where they
want them to travel on the Internet.  When working with children who will
be using the Internet independently, make sure they know how to back out of
sites they might not have wanted to get into.
=============================================================
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/surf/index.html

This site has a published lesson plan aimed at 2nd-3rd grade.  This
school's web page has many valuable resources.
=============================================================

While surfing the web one day, I found a wonderful website that teaches the
Dewey Decimal System.  It is called "'Do We' Really Know Dewey?" and the
URL is http://tqjunior.advanced.org/5002/.  It teaches not only Dewey but
also the difference between fiction and nonfiction books as well as those
Dewey categories that are reserved for fiction, but are hardly ever used
for that.
=============================================================
These are some sites that were recommended for kindergarten and first grade
activities.  What's more, there are links in these sites that lead to even
more.  www.artmuseums.com
http://www.janbrett.com (highly recommended by several librarians)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/arthur/
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/

William Joyce    www.harperchildrens.com/williamjoyce/
Jan Brett                www.janbrett.com
Dr. Seuss                www.randomhouse.com/seussville/
Magic School Bus         www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/
Arthur                   www.pbs.org/wgbh/arthur/
Hans Wilhelm     www.hanswilhelm.com
 Dav Pilkey              www.pilkey.com

If you go to scholastic at www.scholastic.com or random house, or some of
the other children's book publishers, you might find some things by their
authors.

Crayola Web Site
http://www.crayola.com/color_index.html
http://www.coloringpage.org/
http://www.webflare.com/kids/color.htm
=============================================================
Carroll Davey, along with Walter Minkel gave an excellent presentation at
ALA called "Fist Fights and Mouse Ball: Managing Internet Stations for
Young People."  Carroll's part of the presentation dealt with Internet
classes.  The handouts and info about this presentation can be found on the
Jefferson County, CO Library web site at:
http://info.jefferson.lib.co.us/ala99/Fist.html

This site also includes the Power Point presentation slides she uses for
the class.  It is a wonderful resource!
=============================================================
Try www.CyberSafe.org for some good ideas.
=============================================================

--
Mary J. Soucie
Youth Services Consultant
Heritage Trail Library System
815-729-3345 x110
815-725-0930 Fax
mailto:mjsoucie@htls.lib.il.us
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