Following their research into the positive and negative effects of cell phone usage in schools, students will read a brief article that shares recommendations for healthy habits for young people with phones. Students will create a Public Service Announcement promoting healthy habits for peers. This Public Service Announcement will be shared with peers.
This learning activity was created as a result of the ALEX - Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) Resource Development Summit.
Describe the pros and cons of the use of technology as it affects personal, family, and community health.
Recognize and demonstrate age-appropriate responsible use of digital devices and resources as outlined in school/district rules.
The teacher may wish to evaluate this on a S/N/U scale or a check plus/check/check minus scale since it is essentially a wrap-up to the main lesson. The teacher can also select several to display and discuss as a wrap-up.
The one-pager should include the following:
The teacher will question students about their understanding of school policies and their purpose regarding cell phone use at school.
Advanced students may wish to independently research digital citizenship or healthy digital habits to find a topic for their poster. Student posters can be shared with an actual audience through school news, digital signage, in a newsletter to parents, or printed for display.
Students may use the read-aloud feature to read the article. The teacher may wish to allow students a choice in creating a digital or paper PSA.
This lesson is intended to follow the activities Cell Phones and You (before activity) and Pros and Cons of Cell Phones in Schools (during activity). However, if the teacher wishes to skip those lessons, then this activity may be treated as a stand-alone activity.
Teachers should preview the article and be familiar with it prior to using it.
This lesson has students create a PSA. For the purposes of this lesson, the PSA is simply a picture or graphic with a text overlay and an audience of peers. If students are unfamiliar with the idea of PSAs, the teacher may wish to show an example, such as these hand-washing posters: https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/posters.html
The teacher may wish to select an art tool that students are already familiar with or take this opportunity to introduce a new tool to students. Some tools might allow collaboration, such as shared Google Slides or PowerPoint. Other tools that would work well for this activity include Canva or Adobe Express or art apps such as Tayasui Sketches School or Bazaart. It is recommended that the teacher ask the school librarian or tech coach to co-teach if they are unfamiliar with these tools.
Students must be familiar with their school's technology use policy. Students will need background knowledge of pros and cons of cell phone usage.
