technology with intention
The Hurt Square
While Jac is in Central Washington with the 7th grade, 8th grade students are delving deeper into the intersection between data permanence, social networks, friendship and privacy. The work they are doing is an adaptation of a lesson created by Common Sense Media, a non-profit focused on educating students, parents and teachers about the reality of digital identity.
Students examined a series of scenarios that happen everyday online between teens. They then rated the experiences based on the level of hurtfulness or embarrassment that would be caused and the level of intention behind the action.
You may be posting something that you think is funny or harmless, but others involved might not see your comments or media in the same light as you. Who gets to decide how painful something is – the insulter or the person feeling hurt?
You don’t always know how someone will take a joke or statement online. Don’t just think would this offend me? but consider could this hurt the person I’m referring to?
Students captured their responses in a ‘hurt square’, a graphing tool that illustrates the relative pain/intentionality of a situation:
Here is a list of the scenarios that students assessed:
#1: Your long-time buddy from 1st grade just posted a hilarious photo of the two of you when you were only 6 years old. You are both completely naked, running through a garden sprinkler with cowboy hats on.
#2: A classmate that you don’t talk to often just posted a list of “the 5 dumbest things you said today.”
#3: A friend from another school just posted a photo of you with the caption “Sooooo hot! I’d tap that.”
#4: A cabin mate from Camp Colman just posted a photo of you asleep with someone else’s underwear on your pillow.
#5: A buddy has a wall post about how cute you and your crush are. Problem is, they are online buddies with their Mom, who knows your Mom, and your Mom isn’t cool with you dating in 8th grade.
#6: You made a YouTube video for a school project. Someone anonymously commented “that’s so gay!”
#7: A bunch of teammates created a page called “you shouldn’t start for our team because you suck at sports” and then forwarded it to you.
#8: Someone took a photo of you from a school trip and drew boogers and a mustache on it, then posted it.
#9: A friend sent you a private message online that starts by calling you a racial slur for a different race than yours.
Perfect lesson for anti-bullying month. Your students will be more than ready for high school.
I like this, seems simple and easy to use.
Wonderful ..thanks a lot for posting a good informative blog
[...] using personal experiences in confronting this topic. We’ve also spent some time with the Hurt Square, a tool for plotting perceived intention and hurtfulness of an interaction – whether online [...]
I subscribe to this blog and really liked The Hurt Square. Since October was cyber literacy awareness month, and media specialists in my district are implementing cyber literacy programs, this went along quite well as a follow-up to our recent cyber bullying lesson. I put The Hurt Square on a bulletin board in the library and the results can be seen here: http://bettyjordan.blogspot.com/ Thank you for posting such great material.