Helping Students to not do Dumb (and hurtful) Stuff Online

The image above is a screenshot of a message I found on a student's shared Google Document the other day. The student called me over a little freaked out and said that he didn't type it. I checked the revision history, saw who typed it, and sent that student to have a chat with the principal.

Sadly, this was a class of fourth graders, and somewhat ironically, it was during a lesson on staying safe and helpful with online interaction (link to lesson). Despite the unfortunate effects of the student's comments, it was, what some may call, a highly teachable moment about how our online actions can impact ourselves and others.


The lesson started with an overview of what kind of information is safe to share online, and the students had a good grasp of that. I then brought them into a shared Google Doc and asked for their feedback on a poster about staying safe and helpful online. Their job was to post a comment with an idea about how I could improve the poster, and, as expected, many students started posting frivolous, playful comments. This was perfect because then I started projecting the screen, which allowed us to discuss how those types of comments weren't helpful and wasted time. Since students were logged into their accounts, we could see who was typing what.

Based on their expressions - a mixture of shock and dread, I could tell that this made an impression, and it was a great segue into our conversation on what we should and shouldn't post when communicating online. We focused on these guidelines: be kind and helpful. If your comment is neither of those, you shouldn't post it. They responded well to that.

As students were working on their own posters, I came across the aforementioned post from the student. That is when things got tense, but I brought up the kind and helpful guidelines and asked them if the comment was either of those. They knew it didn't, and it really hammered home the point.

If you want to use this idea with your students, I recommend designing something in which they post comments and then you, as the teacher, revisit the comments in front of the class to analyze the impact. This should be done as early as possible as we want out kiddos acting with a responsible mindset from the beginning. I'd love to hear what you have done as well, so feel free to comment.

-Craig