As with any modern student, it's critical for middle school learners to develop their digital citizenship skills. Truthfully, there is never a bad time to begin learning about digital citizenship. Nevertheless, the wanting to explore different things will likely lead to trouble if students are not trained well. So how can we include such a curriculum in our plans? Try out the middle school digital citizenship quiz below.
The fact is that, at this point, kids are beginning to take more control of their lives. Their minds are thinking "me" most of the time, and they are learning independence. They are beginning to expand socially both in the physical and digital worlds, if they haven't been doing so already. As such, venturing onto the Internet is a big deal for some, and may be old hat for others.
Middle school digital citizenship practices empower students to participate in and contribute to the digital world around them. One of the best tools to help you with middle school digital citizenship teaching is our book Growing Global Digital Citizens. It was written with every educator in mind, including middle school. Part of that book contains this middle school digital citizenship quiz.
This middle school digital citizenship quiz is designed to spark lively discussion and challenge critical thinking among your learners. You can convert the questions into a worksheet or discuss them orally in a group debate.
1. Choosing online names that are suitable and respectful.
Your friends are all using a new social media site and they want you join. The site only shows the profile name of the user. You have to create a name that is based on your actual name, but incomplete enough to protect your identity.
What name would you use and why?
2. Only inviting people you actually know in the real world to be your friends in the online world.
You are on a new social media site and you have received a friendship request from a person you don’t know. Their profile says they are the same age as you and they have a very good-looking profile picture.
Should you accept their request? Why did you make your decision?
3. Only visiting sites that are appropriate and respecting the rules that web sites have about age. Some sites are only for adults. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable showing the web site to you parents or grandparents then its inappropriate.
One of your friends has joined an adult dating site. The site has an age restriction of 18 years old and your friend has lied about their date of birth to join the site. Recently, they received a “date” invitation from a member of the dating site.
What advice would you give to your friend?
4. Setting your privacy settings so only the people you know can see you and your personal information.
One of your classmates is making jokes about your last holiday. You haven’t ever spoken to them about it and you think they might have been looking at your social media profile and pictures. You are not friends with them but your privacy settings are set at Friends of Friends.
What does the privacy setting Friends of Friends mean and is this the best setting for you to use?
5. Only putting information online that is appropriate and posting pictures that are suitable. Not everyone seeing your profile or pictures will be friendly.
One of your friends has posted a very revealing picture of themselves wearing only their underwear. Since they have had lots of likes and comments, they are encouraging you put up similar pictures.
What should you do? What advice should give to your friend?
6. Always reporting anything that happens online which makes you feel uncomfortable or unhappy.
A slightly older person has been chatting with you online. They claim to be interested in the same activities, sports, and hobbies as you. They have given you good advice in the past, but now they are asking if you're alone and in your bedroom. Additionally, they've asked if you want meet up somewhere.
What should you do?
7. Talking to trusted adults, like your parents and teachers, about your online experiences. This includes both the good and the bad experiences.
One of the people in your friendship group has posted pictures of you and made some funny comments. They didn’t ask if they could post your picture, and now some of your other friends are adding replies and likes. The comments are humorous but are still quite personal and hurtful. You want this to stop, but you are scared that you might lose friends.
Who should you talk to and why?
1. Show you care by not flaming other people, or forwarding messages that are unkind or inappropriate.
You have been included in an email list which sends around funny jokes, memes, and images. At first the jokes were quite funny but are slowly becoming racist and degrading, and some of the images have been pornographic.
What should you do?
2. Not getting involved in conversations that are unkind, mean or bullying.
A group of your classmates are standing in circle looking at pictures on a phone. One of the people says, “send them to me,” and laughs. The rest of the group agrees and asks for them to be sent to everyone. As you get closer, you realize the pictures are partly undressed selfies of one of the people in your year.
What should you do?
3. Reporting any conversations you see that are unkind, mean or bullying. Imagine if the things being written were about you. If you would find them offensive then they are inappropriate.
One of the students in your class has been really annoying, though they think they are funny and popular. One of your friends has posted on their social media profile and said some very nasty things. They want you to like or reply to the post.
What should you do? Ignore it, post a comment, or report it?
4. Some web sites are disrespectful because they show people behaving inappropriately or illegally—or are racist, bigoted or unkind. Show your respect for others by avoiding these sites. If you visit one by accident, close it and tell your teacher or an adult.
You are at school in one of your classes and you're seated in the middle of the class. The class is boring, so you are surfing the Internet. You visit a website and suddenly there are pop-ups containing pornographic images with links to live chatrooms.
What should you do?
5. Show respect for other’s privacy by not trying to get into their online spaces without invitation, and by not stalking them or copying their pictures.
Your really like one of the people in your year level. Currently they have not set their privacy settings to allow only friends to see their pictures and videos. You could send a friendship request but they might reject it or block you—or you could just continue to visit their profile.
What should you do?
1. Not stealing other people’s property. It’s easy to download music, games and movies, but piracy (downloading media that you have not bought) is just the name given to stealing online.
The latest album by your favourite artist comes out on iTunes. The album is a new release and is at the premium price. You can only buy the complete album not the individual songs. However, you know you can find free copies of the music online.
Do you search for and download the music?
2. Not sharing the music, movies, games and other software that you own with other people.
You have a friend come over to your place while you're playing music from your MP3 player. Your friend asks you for a copy of your music collection.
Do you give it to him?
3. Checking that the information you are using is correct. Anyone can say anything on the Web, so you need to check that the research is correct by using reliable sites. When in doubt ask your teacher or your parents.
It’s Thursday evening, and your assignment is due at 8.30 am Friday morning. You have only framed out the work, and now you're panicking so you talk to one of your friends. They say you can download a similar assignment from a specific website and change a few words, then send that in as your own.
Why shouldn’t you do this?
4. Looking after other people’s websites, acting appropriately when visiting them, not making changes or vandalizing them, and reporting any damage that you find.
You have been given a serial number which is used as the registration key for the latest game. This game producer is a huge multi-national who makes vast profits each year. The game is free to download but requires the registration key, which you are meant to purchase to play beyond the basic game.