Samaritans on the Digital Road
Finding Balance in a Digital World
Learning Goals
I can explain how different digital activities hold varying degrees of value based on their use and purpose.
I can explain why it is important to balance screen time and can describe healthy technology habits.
I can recognize the potential impact of AI on the future of work.
I can create a personal Device-Use Plan that demonstrates my understanding of active and passive digital activities and includes alternative non-digital activities for a well-rounded lifestyle.
Minds On
Let’s review the story of the Good Samaritan by choosing a different link than we did during lesson 1 and lesson 3.
The Good Samaritan is the story of how an ordinary person does an extraordinary thing. While we don’t know if this Samaritan had any other talents, we can certainly describe him as friendly, compassionate, generous, and kind.
Minds On
Each of us is blessed with a unique personality, talents and abilities. Being young, nobody knows where these will lead you as you get older. Maybe you are great at making people laugh and will one day publish entertaining stories. Maybe you have a knack at spotting things in the woods that will one day lead you to be an influential advocate for environmental conservation. Maybe you have a love for different flavours and will one day host a website filled with delicious recipes that others will enjoy. Or, maybe you are very good at cleaning and organizing and will one day manage collections for online museums.
The future ‒ your future ‒ is very exciting!
Minds On
Finding Balance
It’s clear that there are a number of hobbies and interests in our class alone. For some people, a lot of time is spent developing these. After all, many hours of practice are required if we want to excel at our passions. Meanwhile, other people may be trying out various hobbies just for fun.
One thing is for certain, it is not possible to spend all of one’s time just exploring hobbies and passions. There are chores to be done, sleep to be had, friends and family to spend time with, and of course, your favourite place to be: school!
Juggling all these demands on our time require us to find balance in our lives.
Finding Balance with Digital Activities
Just as we need to find balance in our daily lives in the physical world, so too do we need to find balance with regards to our digital activities.
Balancing Digital vs Non-Digital Activities
How do you know when it’s time to take a break from technology?
Some of you might use physical cues, others may have imposed cues (such as family rules or alarms). It’s important to respect those cues, both those from your body and those instructed by caring adults, even though it can be challenging sometimes.
Raise your hand if you have ever found it hard to turn off your device. If we’re being honest, everyone, even the adults in the room, will have a hand in the air.
Why is this the case? What is it about our devices that make them just so desirable?
Your Apps Don’t Want You to Stop
Is that alarming? Many technology applications are actually designed to keep you interested for as long as possible. Websites that use advertisements for revenue actually make more money by keeping you on their site.
What other features have your observed that make it hard to shut down?
Algorithms
What are algorithms and how do they keep us engaged on site?
Digital Value
Fighting algorithms aside, there are also times when our “shut it down” cues don’t line up with our everyday needs. The reality is that we rely on technology in order to do so many basic things. For instance, let’s say you are cooking. If you are following a recipe online, does this count as screen time? What if you are doing an online music lesson? What if you are having a video call with a family member that lives far away?
This is where digital value comes into play. Not all digital activities are the same! We’ll examine this more in the coming slides.
Active vs. Passive Digital Activities
What are some of your favourite digital activities?
Go to the third slide in the Canva whiteboard shared by the teacher
Active vs Passive Digital Activities
There is probably quite a variety of activities on your whiteboard. While all of these are desirable ways to spend our time, not all of them hold the same value.
Some of these activities are highly creative, educational, or foster stronger relationships with others. On the other hand, some of these activities are very passive, such as watching Netflix. Then there are those that sit in-between, like listening to a podcast.
There is a time and a place for all of these activities. Who doesn’t love a movie night every once in a while? When we talk about balancing our digital activities, we are ensuring that we are not ONLY using our device for gaming or social media; we are unlocking the full potential, and our full potential, through a variety of applications.
Low, Medium and High Value Activities
Return to your Canva whiteboard and take a close look at the activities listed. Together, classify them as:
There may be some debate about certain activities, and that is perfectly ok! Perhaps it comes down to HOW the application is used. In this case, make two sticky notes, one that explains the low value use and another that depicts the high value use.
Group them by colour. How many do you have of each? Can you think of more to add to any of the columns?
The Role of AI
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the technology that enables computer systems to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving tasks.
You have learned about many different applications of AI in the previous lessons. Now it’s time to take what we’ve learned and discuss the broader impact that AI may have on society.
Source: AI at the OCSB website - https://sites.google.com/ocsb.ca/aiattheocsb/getting-started-with-ai
Impact of AI on Society
According to UNICEF, AI can offer students personalized learning tools, help with health, urban planning and agriculture, can offer cognitive support and enable more accessibility.
However, AI can also pose some risks. There are privacy and security concerns (as you saw in the last lesson), issues with bias, and psychological implications. AI also poses a risk to the job market and people’s livelihood. Watch this video from CBC Kids News to learn more.
Source: Children and AI. Where are the opportunities and risks? From UNICEF, 2018
After watching the video, we will chat with Theo, the Tech Tutor in SchoolAI to have a discussion about the future of work and AI.
Activity: Let’s Learn with a Chatbot!
Students: On your device, enter the invite link in your browser. The ChatBot will ask you a few questions to get started:
Impact of AI on the Job Market
Have a conversation with Theo about the pros and cons of AI in the job market. Here is a prompt framework from AI for Education that can help you create good prompts for Theo.
It’s clear that AI can be helpful to many jobs to help make them more efficient but it can also have a negative effect on some fields.
Go to the Canva whiteboard from earlier, and find Slide 3.
Add your ideas about AI and the future of work from what you learned from Theo and this lesson.
Then as a class, discuss your findings!
Device Use Agreements
Now that you understand the differences between between low, medium and high value activities, you can see how the way we engage with media can completely skew our rules about time. You have also seen how AI can play a role in education, if it is used effectively and responsibly.
The need for balance between on-screen and off-screen time remains important. Having rules and boundaries around this are not only helpful, but necessary to ensure we remain accountable to ourselves, our health, and our responsibilities to others. AI can help us with tasks to make them more efficient, but caution should be taken to not overuse it or use it to replace our own ideas and work.
Device Use Agreements
In this activity, you will be completing a Device Use Agreement using a template from Richard Culatta’s book Digital for Good.
The agreement can be found in your workspace under the student resources for Lesson 5. It is a Google Doc.
Open it now so that you can discuss it with your teacher and complete it for submission.
It is highly recommended that this be shared and discussed with parents as well.
Closure
In this lesson, we agreed that technology and digital applications play a huge role in our lives but it is important to find balance. We must balance our physical need to be active, our social needs and relationships with those around us, and our responsibilities in our daily lives with our online tech use.
We also learned that not all technology use holds the same value. As responsible digital citizens, we can balance our use by spending more time on applications that promote the global competencies, creating, problem solving, collaborating, while reserving passive technology use for down times.
By following our Device Use Agreement, we can honour ourselves and others by using technology responsibly and wisely.