Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Emoji decoder challenge

20 minutes

Find Out: The 4Cs of online safety

25 minutes

Take Action: Empowering sense statements

5 minutes

Reflection: Personal power kit

Learning intentions

Students will:

identify social contexts and how language use changes between online and offline situations.

Success criteria

Students can:

identify safe and respectful behaviour online.

Tune In: Emoji decoder challenge

Step 1

Ask students what it means to receive a digital message. Brainstorm responses on the board, such as email, text and video message. Show students the digital licence presentation. Explain to the students that they have just been given four mystery messages with words, emojis, and abbreviations. Their digital ‘mission’ is to work out what they mean, who would use them, and in what context.

Project the mystery messages on the Visual Explainer for the students to see.

“Hey @GamerGurl91, u on? 🥫I brw yr Pword 4 the🎮?”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee. Please find my homework attached.”
“Can u plz bring 🥖 + 🥛home?”
“👋Soccer @🥪? I’ll bring my ⚽. CU@🏫!”

Ask the students to work solo or in pairs to decode each message, identifying

what the emojis/shortcuts mean
the likely context (playground, family, school, or online)
who sent it.

Decoded messages:

Mystery message	Decoded message
“Hey @GamerGurl91, u on? 🥫I brw yr Pword 4 the🎮?”	Hey (gaming friend), are you online? Can I borrow your password for the game?
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee. Please find my homework attached. Peter”	Good afternoon, Mrs Lee. My homework is in a document attached to this email. From Peter.
“Can u plz bring 🥖 + 🥛home?”	Can you please bring some bread and milk home?
“👋Soccer @🥪? I’ll bring my ⚽. CU@🏫!”	Hi! Soccer at lunch? I’ll bring my soccer ball. See you at school!

Learning extension: Who makes emojis? Most emojis are designed by Emojination (a not-for-profit group) before being approved by the Unicode Consortium for release. However, some emoji packs are designed for specific contexts like Zouzoukwa (for African cultures), and Indijemoji (First Nations peoples in the NT, Australia). Ask students to identify a particular context, and design emojis that are specific to that context.

Step 2

Ask your students, “What did we see used in these messages that doesn’t really work in real-life conversations?” Students might suggest

emojis (👋🥪⚽🏫)
abbreviations (CU@, plz)
tags (@GamerGurl91)

These examples we have looked at are direct messages (DMs). Ask your students if they can think of any other ways they can communicate with people online. They might suggest

voice chat in-game
comments sections
by reacting to comments or posts with emojis
sharing links
memes
GIFs.

Find Out: The 4Cs of online safety

Step 1

Now that your students understand digital messages, reveal an extra twist by presenting the next messages on the Visual Explainer from strangers online. Discuss the meaning of the messages, and use the following questions to facilitate the conversation.

Is this respectful/safe for you and others?
Should you click the link?
Should you reply? Does the message make you want to reply?
How is this different from talking to a friend in real life?
What could someone do if they received this message online?

Explain to the students that you have unpacked together how context can change how we communicate both digitally and in real life, affecting the types of language choices we make in different settings. Using the Think, Pair, Share thinking routine, ask students to turn to their elbow partner and discuss how being safe and respectful with language and behaviour differs online from face-to-face.

Step 2

Use the next slides in the Visual Explainer to introduce students to the four terms:

Contact: Who we connect with and how.
Conduct: How we behave and treat others.
Compulsion: How we choose to spend our time.
Content: What we watch, read, share, or post.

Use the activity sheet, and continue to use the thinking routine, Think, Pair, Share, to encourage students to identify examples of each of these areas both offline and online.

Step 3

On half of the whiteboard, draw 2 boxes and label them

online - safe/respectful
online - risky/disrespectful.

Ask students to work in pairs or small groups. Distribute one set of the 4C scenario cards evenly across the groups. Ask students to sort each card into one of two piles: safe and respectful or risky and disrespectful online behaviour.

When each group has sorted their cards, ask them to come to the board and stick each card into the box they think it belongs in. Upon completion, ask students to discuss which cards they put in different piles and why. Ask if there are any cards that sit in a “grey area”. Facilitate a discussion on how something could be safe or risky depending on the context.

Step 4

Now, draw two more boxes on the whiteboard and label them

offline - safe/respectful
offline - risky/disrespectful.

Distribute a second set of scenario cards, and ask them to repeat the process, but thinking of offline behaviour. Invite students to help build a side-by-side comparison table as a class on the board. For each C, ask the students:

What does “safe and respectful” look like offline?
What does “safe and respectful” look like online?
What’s the same, what’s different?

Example table:

4C	Offline: Safe & Respectful	Online: Safe & Respectful
Contact	• Choose who to spend time with. • Telling a trusted adult if a stranger makes them feel uncomfortable.	• Knowing if contact is being initiated by a person or an automated system. • Managing privacy settings in Apps.
Conduct	• Use polite language. • Not spreading a story that they know isn’t true.	• Use polite and inclusive language. • Following the rules of the online space.
Compulsion	• Knowing how to calm down if feeling overwhelmed. • Reading a book past bedtime.	• Recognise the feeling of being online for too long, such as a sore neck and eyes. • Choose what to do, rather than letting a computer/ algorithm choose.
Content	• Knowing how and why information might be shared and by whom. • Asking smart questions to decide if information is true and fair.	• Knowing what a trusted source of information looks like. • Thinking about what is being created and who it is being created for.

Take Action: Empowering sense statements

Step 1

Define what a statement is to students. For example, “A statement is a sentence that says something clearly. It shares an idea, gives information, or tells how you feel or what you believe. A statement is not a question, and it’s not a command. It simply tells something in a clear way.”

Reinforce learning by asking students to share a statement that outlines the key messages they have learned during this lesson. For example

“The words we use change depending on whether we’re online or offline.”
“It’s important our online behaviour is safe and respectful.”
“What is safe and respectful offline is not always the same as what is safe and respectful online.”

Explain to the students that they will be creating ‘code of conduct’ statements to help others understand expected online and offline behaviours. These are intended to help people act safely and respectfully.

Write this example on the board: "It is important to keep our passwords safe." Explain to the students that they will then create an empowering statement that helps people understand how to do this. For example, "We will do this by creating a unique password and not sharing it with anyone."

Step 2

Invite students to brainstorm other ideas with an elbow partner. Student answers may include:

Code of conduct statement: "We know that balance is important online and offline"

Empowering sense statement: "We will do this by utilising time limits on games and doing things with friends offline too."

Code of conduct statement: "It is not okay to bully someone online or offline."

Empowering sense statement: "We will act as upstanders by calling out poor behaviour, and asking the teacher for help straight away."

Step 3

Hand out blank cards and invite students to write down two or three ‘code of conduct’ and link ‘empowerment statements’. Remind students that these statements should help people feel confident, safe, and respectful in online and offline situations.

Encourage creativity! Students can illustrate or decorate their cards/statements.

Step 4

Invite students to collate these statements to create a class ‘Code of Conduct’ and share with other classes.

Reflection: Personal power kit

Step 1

Encourage students to take time to reflect on their interactions, both online and offline, beyond the classroom. Ask them to create a personal toolkit by writing down goal statements that can guide and empower their future behaviours.

Safe and Respectful Online

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Summary

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