Friday, July 13, 2012


CommonSense Media – Lesson Summary/Review


One of the lessons I read through on CommonSense’s website was regarding Digital Life for Kindergarten to First Graders.  It’s objective was to help students see how emails provide a way to communicate with real people when you are not able to be in the same room with them and then how to actually send and receive emails. 

What I really enjoyed from this lesson was the idea of having the students role play the function of the internet in delivering and receiving an emailed message.  By having several students BE the “internet,” “the email/message,” “send” and “receive” it gave a tangible opportunity for the understanding of an unseen concept.  It allowed the students to physically be involved in the process encouraging the retention of the ideas discussed.  I remember role playing on one particular day in my 7th grade health class.  I can’t tell you much about what I learned that year but that day is still very clear to me and it’s been over 23 years.  Students respond to doing. 

After accessing the students’ background knowledge and role playing the concept, the teacher demonstrates actually creating and sending an email.  This provides a model showing the students how it is really done and why (for what purpose); leading to the option of sending the same message to more than one person.  Then a discussion is held on other messages that could be sent to others within the school, then to family members, and then to people who are in another state or country.  This takes a small idea and opens the students’ minds to the expansive possibilities emailing provides them within their local or world-wide community. 

The wrap up involves a question and answer review, but in the extension and homework section of this lesson entails asking the students to draw their message as it is being sent through the internet – how fun!  What a creative way to again reinforce an abstract concept to young minds.  For homework students can write a message they would like to send to someone, get their email address and either send it from home if they have a computer or bring it to school and send it from a school computer.  I can see how this would be very exciting to students if they hadn’t already experienced emailing, or if they had, maybe the teacher could challenge them to try sending a message to someone new. 

I found this to be a fun introduction for young students to see how digital technology can be a great tool in helping them communicate and connect with others. 

1 comment:

  1. Wendy, This looks like a wonderful idea and seems ideal for a Kindergarten or first grade class. I think since this new generation of kids are so well-versed and comfortable with the internet and other online programs, that we often forget that kids need to understand the basics, the importance, the purpose and the thought process behind it. Having them explore the nature of the internet, through different means is such a creative way to have students appreciate the way communication is done in the modern world. Emailing is a great, useful and purposeful tool. I will definitely take a closer look at this site and see how I can incorporate it into my 2nd grade classroom.

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