Digital citizenship is essential to successfully participate in our digital world. Students can create in Wixie to engage in the learning process as they share their ideas, imagination and understanding.
Stories are a safe and fun way to spark conversations about digital citizenship issues like online safety, digital responsibility, and wellness. Use these book titles and the connected Wixie activities to ensure your students are not only engaged, but inclusive, informed, balanced, and alert users of digital tools.
Alert
The Technology Tail by Julie Cook
This clever story demonstrates how what we post online will be connected to us forever like a tail, digital footprint, or a tattoo. The book shares examples of ways you can heal or hurt your "technology tail" by posting kind comments or inappropriate things like test answers and personal passwords.
After reading this story with students, ask students questions like:
• What types of things could cause "scratches" on a tail?
• How can you prevent "holes" on your tail?
• What does keyboard courage look like to you?
Then, have students use the Technology Tail activity to show how they can damage, protect, and heal their technology tail.
Wixie Technology Tail activity
Chicken Clicking by Jeanne Willis
The chicken in this story gets caught up in shopping online for new items for the farm. One-click leads to the next and soon the chicken is posting pictures to meet a new friend online. Much like the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the chicken soon discovers that things aren’t always as they are portrayed. Will she learn to be careful when she are online?
To respond, have students use the Public Service Announcement activity to raise awareness and teach those about the importance of making wise and informed decisions about meeting new people.
You can create animated public service announcements, by duplicating the pages, making small changes, and exporting the result as an animated GIF.
#Goldilocks: A Hashtag Cautionary Tale by Jeanne Willis
A fun rhyming story about a little girl who craves getting attention online. In her quest to get more "likes", Goldilocks resorts to more daring actions and posts about breaking into a cottage, breaking chairs #fun, and eating porridge #pipinghot! And, in the end, ended up having no friends at all.
Teachers can use this book to teach about the dangers of oversharing on social media. Have students use the Social Media template in Wixie's Curriculum library to create do's and don'ts of social media sharing and the consequences that can follow.
Once students craft their social media posts, combine the individual pages into one project to share with your class. Encourage meaningful dialogue with students as they examine each post to determine if each post is a "don’t" or a "do" post.
Informed
The Nantucket Sea Monster by Darcy Pattison
This is a true story about a “fake” news story that happened in 1937 when a fisherman reported he saw a sea monster on Nantucket Island. The story chronicles the events surrounding the sea monster sighting and how subsequent newspaper and eyewitness accounts spread fear across the nation.
Use this book to start discussions about non-political fake news stories. Then, have students create news stories that are both real and fake. Print or post online and work together to decipher which ones are true.
Wixie News: Real or Fake? template
Balanced
Use these titles to start discussions with students about healthy digital habits and social addiction.
When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins
This narrative poem tells the story of what computer game fanatic, Charlie McButton, goes through after a thunderstorm shuts down the power at his house. He quickly learns that using his imagination can be just as fun. Work as a class to describe what Charlie’s life is like before and after the thunderstorm.
Unplugged: Ella Gets Her Family Back by Laura Peterson
Ella is frustrated as her family has become obsessed with using their devices, rather than participating in family activities. To make a statement, she collects all of the devices and chargers in a laundry basket, hoping this act will motivate her family to make some changes. But, will her actions have the intended effect?
Work together to complete a Venn Diagram showing activities that can be done with a device, without a device, or enjoyed both ways.
Get making with Wixie
Assign the Device-Free Cube activity to have students come up with activities they like to do that do not require their devices or the Internet.
Inclusive
The Fabulous Friend Machine by Nick Bland
Popcorn, the friendliest chicken at Fiddlesticks Farm, finds a forgotten phone that she starts using to text and make new friends. She is so caught up sending messages to her new friends online, she begins to forget her old friends. As it turns out, the friends she has been messaging are wolves that want to eat her. Luckily for Popcorn, her old friends come and save the day.
Talk to your students about the metaphor, "mesmerized by a new shiny penny." See if they can remember times when they forgot about something old when something new came along. Toys are a good example.
Then, ask your students how they balance making new friends while maintaining existing friendships. Using these ideas, ask them to brainstorm things that Popcorn could have done differently after finding the smartphone in the hay.
Wixie Hen Apology Letter Activity
Have students write an apology as Popcorn to her barnyard friends to help restore their friendship. Encourage students to explain why Popcorn is sorry for ignoring them and what she will do in the future to be more inclusive of them, even when new friends or something exciting comes up.
Engage
Students are engaged when they are making and creating to demonstrate understanding. For additional ideas, search “Digital Citizenship” on the Wixie homepage or visit the Curriculum > Digital Citizenship folder for more templates and activities to support student learning.
Share your own ideas using the hashtags #wixie and #digitalcitizenship on Twitter and Instagram.
