The New Semester

Starting the 2013 semester has been good so far. We have taken a little break from "Life Lessons" to issue students new ID cards and explain how the ID cards are going to work as well as the expectations. Today, we spent Project LEAD completing Match Makers forms. It is a fun activity we do each year to see who students match up with. 

Next week, we have a short week because of a student holiday and a early release but we are going to have a Project LEAD class. This semester to we are going to do more individualized grade level lessons, since we have all the required Internet Safety Curriculum out of the way.

I am still reviewing and collecting data from the end of semester surveys and I hope to be able to report that to the staff soon.

Final Project LEADS for the Fall Semester

This is our finals week at school and we are having two Project LEAD classes. The one tomorrow I had originally planned to do a lesson on career choices but because of the recent tragedy in Connecticut I decided to change my lesson to "Courage". I feel that it is important that students understand, "what courage is?" It will be important for teachers to really take the time to have students discuss and identify "heroes". 

On Thursday, students will complete an end-of-semester survey to evaluate how the Project LEAD classes are going and if they have any suggestions. Until 2013 and implementing our student id program.   

Digital Identity

Monday was the last part of internet safety lessons. I had the students discuss how what the post on any social medias can affect their chances for college or future jobs. I had a video for them to review but because of the weather we were without power so all the classes had discussions. I think it worked out better. I had the opportunity to sit in on a senior class to listen to what they had to say. I could honestly see they understood the importance of their decisions. I could definitely see a mature level difference in them compared to their answers at the beginning of the year. Next week is the last week of the semester and the Project LEAD classes will meet twice. I am looking at doing a career choice lesson and an end-of-the-semester survey. 

December 3, 2012-Project LEAD

Monday's Project LEAD lesson was part 4 of 5 of the Internet Safety Lessons. This week we covered Internet Safety and Privacy. Students and teachers both learned what "cookies" were and what kind of information websites are collecting and if students really want to share their information with just anyone. Students also learned that websites should have a "Privacy Policy" and where they can find that. In talking with students, several of them didn't know what cookies were and what they do. Hopefully, they will be a little more cautious in the future. I even had a few teachers tell me they learned something new, so that is always a good thing. Next week, the last of Internet Safety, so stay tuned. 

Copyrights and Wrongs

On Monday in Project LEAD students worked on Part 3 of 5 on the Internet Safety Curriculum we have to complete. This section covered Information Literacy, so I felt it was time that we covered Copyright. Teachers presented the lesson I created where they explained the difference in copyright, fair use and public domain. Classes had discussions on how these are handled in the classroom and also reviewed videos provided by Common Sense Media.

Relationship/Community

Today in Project LEAD I created a leson that is tied in with our Internet Safety Curriculum; this is part 2 of 5. Students discussed with there teachers the reasoning for the pictures they post online. This included pressure, double standards, etc. that young people deal with when they post a picture.

4 Days of Project LEAD

Last week during our six weeks testing we decided to change up the schedule and we had four days of Project LEAD. During that time we were able to have class meetings for freshman and seniors, graduation plans for sophomores and juniors. I decided to start our five-part Internet Safety Curriculum. We spent two days on cyberbullying were students created a cyberbullying policy to present to our Campus Education Improvement Committee as well as cyberbullying survey for our student body to complete. I will update my blog on both of these activities to see where it takes us.