How I Use It
Digital Compass is the perfect tool to facilitate middle school level digital citizenship conversations. The seamless platform was used in a 1:1 iPad sixth-grade classroom. Middle school kids will be a little put out by the cartoon based characters, and you may even experience a few moans and groans. The characters are relatable but have such a unique look that no one is pointing the finger and comparing the character to an individual in the classroom. The cleverly disguised setting is a town called ANYWHERE and as soon as you start the students are engaged in Digital Compass. I had students pick one of the eight digital citizenship topics: Information Literacy, Cyberbullying, Privacy & Security, Internet Safety, Self-Image & Identity, Relationships & Communication, Creative Credit & Copyright, and Digital Footprint & Reputation.
I then grouped students by interest and modeled a character as an entire lesson. Kids spent one class period trying to work through all the scenarios with the character/topic they picked. Students were also encouraged to play the game that is associated with the topic.
Digital Compass is the perfect tool to engage students in the most important topics revolving around digital citizenship. The tool allows students to test positive and negative choices in a choose your own adventure style. Many times we only focus on what to do, and Digital Compass allows students to explore what happens when you do not take the correct path in the journey. As students start to share and report on what they learned many students continue the adventure at home and delve into the characters on their own.