The 6th grade continued their foray into the wild Internet today with a lesson on phishing and tips on identifying suspect URLs. Students got the chance to play Anti-Phishing Phil, a teaching tool developed at Carnegie Mellon that helps students spot questionable internet addresses. All are encouraged to try playing the game in their free time.

We also continued our discussion about email.  Students got their school email accounts last week and tested the service by sending emails back and forth.  This week, we talked specifics:

What is SPAM?

Student definition: any email you get that you didn’t ask for and didn’t want.  This means you can get SPAM from someone you know!

What is sarcasm?

Student definition: jokes or messages that mean the opposite of what the words say.  You can tell sarcasm by how people say something with their tone of voice or body language – eye rolling, head shaking, etc.

Because an email doesn’t contain these non-verbal cues, sarcasm is really hard to figure out when words are just on a page or screen.  Some people use emoticons or text language (j/k, lol, etc) to try and give readers a hint about their intent – but as a general rule, we avoid sarcasm in emails so that our friends don’t get the wrong message.