Summary:
In this lesson, students use their computers to learn all about scams and popups on the internet. They learn to identify ‘dodgy’ sites and popup windows while also creating some online and real-world strategies to deal with this issue. Another great lesson on cybersafety.
Australian Curriculum Links:
- Language for interaction – Understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social
conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality
in social situations (ACELA1476). - Listen to and contribute to conversations and discussions to share information and
ideas and negotiate in collaborative situations (ACELY1676). - Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a
growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1680). - Use software including word processing programs with growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts
featuring visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1685).
Investigate with ICT
- Using ICT to plan and refine information searches; to locate and access different types of data and information
and to verify the integrity of data when investigating questions, topics or problems.
Communicate with ICT - Using ICT to communicate ideas and information with others adhering to social protocols appropriate to the
communicative context (purpose, audience and technology).
Operate ICT
- Applying technical knowledge and skills to use ICT efficiently and to manage data and information when and as needed.
- Apply appropriate social and ethical protocols and practices to operate and manage ICT.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognise that content may have been created for a purpose that is not obvious.
- Recognise the features of unsolicited emails, spam and junk mail, and know what to do with them.
- Demonstrate how to safely close a suspect window.
- Recognise some common scams and phishing techniques, including lotteries, chain or pyramid letters, popups for ‘free stuff’, and rogue ads.
- Recognise that some people go online with the intent to commit crime, and these people are called cyber criminals.
- Recognise the importance of talking with teachers, parents and carers if anything bad (scary or gross) happens online.
Lesson:
Introduction:
- There are plenty of dodgy sites on the web (and dodgy people using the web) that will try to scam you in some way. Sometimes a site will even look dodgy, and have bad spelling mistakes. If a site looks dodgy, it probably is. But some dodgy sites are cleverly designed to look completely genuine and legitimate.Online scams are designed to fool people into giving someone their money, passwords, personal details or other valuables. Scammers will do this with a promise or offer of something that isn’t real. Scammers love the anonymous nature of the internet so if you are shopping, banking, chatting or playing games online, you really have to be on the lookout for anyone who tries to get you to part with your personal details. You also need to be wary of websites that might not be secure. Dodgy sites and dodgy dealers are not always easy to spot
Body:
- Send children back to their computers and ask them to login to their Budd-e (Show the students the student section of Budd-e by getting them to create an account at https://budd-e.staysmartonline.gov.au/primary/main.php. (if they haven’t already done so))
- Ask them to then go into the ‘WINGS’ section.
- Explain to the students that in this multiple choice activity they must decide what is safe to click in a junk or spam email, or ‘free’ (scam) pop-up. Clicking on unsafe elements scores negative points—one point for each number of times a student has been ‘sucked in’. However, the activity will allow the student to choose again, and students are prompted towards choosing correct (safe) elements
- To conclude, students should then complete three statements about spam, online scams and pop-ups. If they choose an incorrect statement, they are prompted to choose again until the correct text is selected.
Conclusion:
- Whole-class discussion to review learning objectives.
- Brainstorm why there are cyber criminals and what they may be after.
- Whole-class discussion about ‘online friends’, and how a person may not be who they say they are.
- Discuss that cyber criminals sometime pretend to be online friends.
- Make a list of strategies for staying safe with online friends.
- Brainstorm the sorts of data that people keep on computers, and make a list of good things that may be lost if a computer is corrupted.
- Brainstorm examples of dodgy sites and scams that students may have seen, and make a list of key features.
- Discuss why it’s important to report (to teachers, parents or carers) anything bad that happens online: that it helps to make the web safer and more secure for everyone.
Associated Vocabulary:
- Ads
- Banner ads
- Computer
- Cybercrime
- Cybersecurity
- Data
- Fake
- Filtering
- Internet
- Junk mail
- Malware
- Networking
- Online
- Online friends
- Popups
- Report
- Scams
- Security updates
- Site
- Software
- Spam
Assessment:
- Anecdotal records
- Ask students to print out the final quiz
- Initial additions to whole class discussions
- Create a cloze with the above words in it
Resources:
- Stay Smart Online at www.staysmartonline.gov.au
- SCAMwatch at www.SCAMwatch.gov.au
- ThinkUKnow at www.thinkuknow.org.au
- Cybersmart at www.cybersmart.gov.au
- Cybersafety Help Button at www.dbcde.gov.au/helpbutton
The above work is able to be shared via a Creative Commons Licence and is courtesy of the Commonwealth of Australia. More resources can be found at https://budd-e.staysmartonline.gov.au/teachers/primary/index.html
