At the start of the year, the library/technology team (ILT) introduces our fifth graders to the technology they will use throughout the year. This includes Canvas, Veracross, PaperCut, Microsoft 365, and all its related apps. One thing that we and the teachers felt was missing, though, was more about Overlake’s philosophy around technology.

One of our fifth grade’s overarching goals is instilling a set of values called “Citizen Owl.” These tailor Overlake’s values for our youngest students: Compassion, Community, Curiosity, Integrity, Respect, and Independence. The fifth grade teachers work hard to integrate these values into their curricula and SEL lessons throughout the year. Likewise, the ILT team, instead of an acceptable use policy, hasGuiding Questions for Responsible Use of Technology.

So with both of those things in mind, we designed a lesson to get the kids thinking about how we can use technology to support Overlake’s mission and values. We started with a basic PowerPoint to share the values, and the guiding questions that connect them to technology:

Compassion: How will we use technology to show compassion, care, and kindness to others?

Curiosity: How will we use technology to explore, research, and find out about the world?

Integrity: How will we use technology honestly?

Inclusion & Equity: How will we use technology to create environments that include everyone equally?

Respect: How will we use technology to show respect for ourselves and our community?  

From there, we broke the kids into five groups, and assigned each one a specific guideline. We gave each group a list of possible technology uses/scenarios, with the instruction that the group should decide which ones applied to their guideline. Each group had a poster-sized post-it with the value on it, and two columns: Yes and No. They also got a pad of small post-its, and if the group decided a use/scenario qualified as something that people SHOULD do, they wrote it up and put it in the “yes” column. If the use/scenario qualified as something people should NOT do, it went on a post-it in the “no” column. We also asked the groups to come up with their own examples for each column.

On the screen, we showed examples for each guideline:

Compassion: For example, communicate electronically with the same care and caution as you would in person, recognizing that electronic communication has limitations.

Curiosity: For example, learn and inquire within school-appropriate boundaries, exploring relevant topics safely and responsibly.

Integrity: For example, represent yourself and your work honestly, giving credit where it is due.  

Inclusion & Equity: For example, help everyone feel welcome and included when communicating online. For example, avoid assuming everyone has access to the same technology.

Respect: For example, consider the appropriate time, space, and tools for each class, audience, etc. For example, demonstrate responsible use of technology when you are on your own. 

Here are the scenarios we gave the students:

•            Eating or drinking next to laptop

•            Searching for Taylor Swift tickets while I’m supposed to be researching the US Constitution

•            Spamming a chat group with silly (appropriate) gifs and memes

•            Walking across campus with my laptop open

•            Having Flint (AI) quiz me on science topics before a test

•            Playing a bloody first-person shooter game

•            Sending emails during class

•            Using someone else’s Veracross id number to print 

•            Creating a meme from an embarrassing pic I took of my brother

•            Sending a message to my teacher that is all emojis and says “’sup?”

•            Interacting with people on my Discord server during class

•            Sending messages to my parents during class

•            Playing games on my Apple Watch

•            Listening to a podcast on my AirPods during class

•            Listening to a podcast at home 

•            Surfing YouTube or TikTok for funny videos

•            Taking pictures of people and posting without permission

•            Using my friend’s computer to send a message as them to a teacher or student

•            Sharing my password with a friend

•            Sleeping with my laptop in my bed

•            Having ChatGPT write my report on Ancient Mesopotamia for me

•            Using my laptop in the bathroom/restroom

•            Doing research for class

•            Using Canva AI to create images for a PowerPoint

•            Sending a nice message to someone who is having a bad day

•            Emailing a teacher to ask for help on an assignment

•            Storing my laptop safely

•            Working with a teacher to set up a virtual author visit

•            Setting up a group chat on Teams for an assignment

•            Having Flint (AI) help me brainstorm story ideas

So, how did it go? We thought it went reasonably well. Clearly the kids thought about the questions, and in the end maybe that’s all you can ask of fifth graders! We will definitely make some changes next year, though. First, we had all 33 kids together due to scheduling complications, and that didn’t work so well—the rooms are not designed for that number of kids, and it got rather chaotic. Splitting into two groups would have worked better. Also, we thought that it would work better to offer the kids scenarios specific to their guideline as well as the general scenarios; they had trouble applying specific scenarios to their guidelines, though they had less trouble identifying negative and positive uses of technology in general.