CyberSmart! : Lesson Plans : Cyberspace at School

Cyberspace at School

Download Student Activity Sheet(s) for printout in PDF Format

Overview
Children explore the concept of cyberspace as a means of communicating with real people within their school.

Objectives

		Explain that cyberspace is a means of communicating with real people
		Draw pictures to show cyberspace connections between real people

ISTE^® National Technology Standards

Performance Indicator # 3

Site Preview

No Internet site is used in this lesson.

Online Resources

Visit sites providing background information on understanding cyberspace.

Materials

		Activity sheet (1)
		School E-mail computer network
		Crayons; markers

Introduce

Have children list all the ways they can send and receive messages (write, draw, telephone, fax, mail, etc.)

Teach 1 (using school network)

		Present the following to children: I'd like to tell Ms. (a teacher in a distant classroom) some important news. I can't go and tell her now, because I am teaching in this room. Ask: How will I get the message to her? Students may suggest using an intercom or sending a student with a written note.
		Explain that there is another way to deliver the news without anyone needing to leave the room - by sending the message through cyberspace using the computer.
		Invite children to watch you type a brief E-mail message, fill in the header information, and click the button to send it. OPTIONAL: Alert the recipient to watch for the E-mail and to reply as soon as it is received.
		Ask: Where did my message go? How did it happen? Guide children to use the word "cyberspace" in their responses.

Teach 2

		Ask: How could you send a message to another teacher in our school? To our principal? To the nurse? Guide children to recognize that messages can be sent through cyberspace to reach all of these people.
		Distribute the activity sheet. Have children think of the message you sent to another teacher and all the other real people they might send a message to through cyberspace and then draw a picture of the cyberspace connections between them. Encourage them to think imaginatively and show how people communicate by using computers.

Teach 3

Invite volunteers to share their drawings and to explain how people in their school communicate through cyberspace. While there is no right or wrong way to draw cyberspace, children's pictures should show their understanding that cyberspace is a way for real people to communicate by using computers.

		Ask: What can you do in cyberspace? (send messages to real people)
		Ask: What did your pictures show?

Extend
The following activity can be added for children who completed this lesson in a previous grade.

Help children make a list of people beyond their school with whom they might communicate through cyberspace (for example, a friend in another town or an uncle very far away). Then have them draw the cyberspace connections between all these people, introducing the idea that cyberspace extends beyond their school to people using computers anywhere in the world.