Internet Health Basics | Decentralization Activity

• Preparation

  Read through the lesson and try the offline and online activities on your own to see how they work.

  Gather your supplies and print any map and 6-word story templates your learners need.

  Make as many sticky notes as you need to have one for every learner and add a word that’s part of a larger message made up of all the sticky notes. Try to create a message that captures the importance of decentralization to a healthy Internet (like, “A decentralized web lets everyone share their ideas online!”).

  Create a class account on Thimble you can share with your learners or practice creating new accounts if you want to demo account creation as part of the activity.

  Try today’s Thimble project and tutorial on your own to learn how they work.

• Introduction

  10 minutes

  In this step, you’ll introduce the ideas of Internet health and decentralization to your students.

  Begin by saying something like this:

  Today we’ll look at how decentralization helps promote a healthy Internet. A healthy Internet is open and accessible for all, and we can all create, find, and share the media we love with anyone else connected to the web.

  When just a few organizations and governments control the majority of online content and access, the vital flow of ideas and knowledge is blocked. The Internet should belong to the people.

  When we “decentralize” the web, help our connected devices talk and work with one another in interoperable ways regardless of which company made them. We learn how to look for and evaluate information for ourselves instead of taking what companies give us. We make connections and friends based on our own decisions, not decisions made by programs called algorithms that others use to influence our behavior.

  The Internet becomes decentralized when we realize we can make our own connections, share our own work and chart our own paths across the web.

  A decentralized web looks like millions of people in direct contact with one another sharing interests, problems, and solutions.

  A centralized web looks like a handful of companies controlling most of the media we see when we download apps, send messages, and visit sites.

  For example, according to freepress:

  • Just 9 companies control most of the telecommunications infrastructure of the Internet, like cables and cell towers, in the United States.
  • Just 10 companies control most of the TV and radio content we might find online.
  • Just 4 companies control most of the app and Internet ecosystem of apps, services, and sites we use.

  One big issue connected to decentralization is Net neutrality. We rely on network providers – telcos and cable companies – for access to the Internet. Which puts them in a position to restrict that access for their own business objectives, favoring their own products, blocking sites or brands, or charging different prices and offering different speeds depending on content type. Net neutrality prohibits network providers from discriminating based on content, so everyone has equal access.

  Think of it this way: the web is like a city with a river going right through the middle of it. If that city was like the decentralized web, anyone could build a bridge across that river to reach the people on the other side. You'd have lots of options, and be able to choose which bridge you'd prefer to use. If 'net neutrality' was protected, any person, thing or piece of information crossing the bridge would be treated the same. No problem.

  If that city was like a centralized web, there would only be one bridge owned by a company that would make everyone pay to cross the bridge. If net neutrality was not protected, people and corporations could pay more to use a “fast lane” - giving some people and pieces of information crossing the bridge an advantage over others.

• Offline Activity

  20 minutes

  In this step, you and your learners will map or model how to decentralize the web in opposition to forces that want to centralize it and kill net Neutrality.

  Option 1 - Map your own decentralized web

  In this option, you and your learners will draw maps based on the city and river analogy in the introduction. The template for this activity has a map of a city with a river running through it.

  On each side of your river banks, you and your learners will:

  1. Add your names to your maps.
  2. Draw at least 8 different apps, people, and websites you visit every day using the web. These drawings can be icons and stick figures or even just labels for learners who experience difficulty drawing. You and other learners can always help one another draw and label things, as well.
  3. Draw these apps, people, and websites next to different buildings across the city.
  4. Make sure to have a few drawings on each side of the city.
  5. Be sure to add a drawing, icon, or label for yourself next to a building, as well.
  6. Draw lines that act as “bridges” between all the apps, people, and websites you visit and you.
  7. Draw lines between the apps, people, and websites that are also connected to one another.

  Pass out map templates to your learners.

  You can also project a larger version of the map on a whiteboard and invite each learner to add themself and 1 other place they visit on the web. Then you can add bridges as a group to see how you and your learners act as a network of people on the web.

  Take about 10 minutes to draw, label, and add bridges to your maps.

  After you and your learners finish your drawings, invite 3-5 volunteers to share and explain their maps.

  Then hold a brief, reflective discussion and invite 2-3 volunteer responses per question using prompts like these:

  • Do you think information would flow more quickly in your city the decentralized way you drew it or if there was just one, centralized bridge going across the river? Why?
  • Is it better to have different, decentralized bridges across the Internet, even if everyone can’t see all of them, or is it better to have one, centralized bridge across the Internet that everyone can watch? Why?
  • Who should own the bridges across the Internet? Why?

  Option 2 - Internet keep-away

  In this option, you and some of your learners will develop a “keep-away” game or system that keeps information flowing around other players who want to centralize all the information shared in the game.

  You need to clear an open space for this game.

  Introduce and explain the rules of the game like this:

  1. We’re going to play a game of keep away to show how centralization and decentralization work.
  2. At first, one player will try to centralize all information.
  3. The rest of us will split up and stand in a line on either side of that person. We will be the decentralization players.
  4. In round one, we will try to pass all of our information - which is on sticky notes - from one side to the other.
  5. The player who wants to centralize the information can keep whatever we pass to them and pass it along whenever they want or ask us to pay for it.
  6. What do you think will happen to our information?

  At this point, use an equitable way to pick the player who wants to centralize the web and have them stand in the middle of the learning space.

  Split the remaining players into two equal groups. Ask each group to line up on one side of the player who wants to centralize the web.

  Then continue with the game. Give the sticky notes to the player at the end of one of the lines of players who want to decentralize the web. Ask them to pass the notes along, one by one, to try and get them to the player at the end of the opposite line.

  Once all of the sticky notes have made it across the room or been intercepted and held by the player who wants to centralize the web, ask your learners a few questions like these and invite 2-3 volunteer responses to each:

  • What did you notice about the way information moved in that round of the game?
  • What are some potential problems with this kind of centralized control over information on the Internet?
  • Can you imagine any ways to get around this kind of control on a centralized web?

  After you hear from your learners, explain the second round of the game like this:

  1. Okay, now let’s try round 2.
  2. In this round, the player interested in centralizing the web stays put in the center of the room.
  3. Everyone else can spread out.
  4. We need 3-5 volunteers to be “start points” for our information.
  5. We need 3-5 volunteers to be “end points” for our information.
  6. Your job, as a group, is to arrange yourself around the player in the middle in such a way that you can pass multiple pieces of information at once from players who volunteer to be “start points” and that everyone can hold and read each part of the message without passing it through the hands of the player in the middle.
  7. All of the sticky notes must make it into the hands of one of the “end point” players.
  8. Then, the players who volunteer to be “end points” can put the message together and share it with the entire group.

  Once your learners have succeeded in the second round, wrap up with a brief discussion of prompts like these:

  • How was round 2 different from round 1?
  • Is it better to control information or to free it, so to speak? Why?
  • How does decentralization contribute to a healthy Internet - to a web that’s open and accessible for all?

• Online Activity

  25 minutes

  In this step, you’ll help learners create a 6-word story capturing their understanding of decentralization in response to one of the following questions:

  • What does it feel like to create something new on the web?
  • What does it mean for you - or the people - to own the web?
  • Why is centralization of the web unhealthy for the Internet?
  • Why is decentralization healthy for the Internet?
  • What are some things people can do to own part of the web?

  To begin, say:

  Next, we’ll create and share 6-word stories about decentralization. These are tiny stories that share just a thought or two at a time about a topic. We’re going to:

  1. Brainstorm our own 6-word stories.
  2. Brainstorm an image that might go along with each of our stories.
  3. Search for those images online.
  4. Remix our stories and the images we find into a webpage on Thimble, Mozilla’s online code editor.

  Let’s get started with this template. On the front, answer one of the questions using just 6 words. Be sure to include “decentralization” and maybe “Internet health” in your story.

  On the back, make a very basic sketch or write a description of an image you’d like to use to illustrate your story.

  We’ll take 10 minutes to do those things, and then we’ll visit Thimble and follow a tutorial to share our work online and add some decentralized content to the web!

  Pass out the 6-word story templates. Invite your learners to complete them. After about 10 minutes, call your learners back together.

  Next, say:

  Okay, now let’s go to today’s project on Thimble. Here is the link!

  https://mzl.la/2np6dGJ

  Post or project the link in an easily accessible and readable place in your learning space. Help all of your learners get to the site.

  Once all of your learners have made it to the project ask them to hit the green remix button in the upper right-hand corner of the Thimble window. This will take them into Thimble where they will see the code for the project and a preview of the webpages they’ll make.

  Demo the following:

  1. Sign-in or create an account. Help students login with a class account you create before the lesson or help them create their own accounts using the link in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Each learner will need to provide an email for verification and then create a username and password for their account.
  2. Use the tutorial to complete the activity. Show your learners how to move through the tutorial so they can add their own stories to the project and replace the background image with one they search for online.

  Give learners about 15 minutes to make their changes and publish their projects.

  Then invite them to take a quick “gallery walk” around the room to see each other’s work.

  Finally, move on to the reflection for today’s lesson.

• Reflection & Assessment

  5 minutes

  End the lesson with a brief, reflective discussion of how decentralization connects to Internet health. You can record learners’ responses for the purposes of assessment, but be sure to do so in an equitable way that doesn’t disadvantage one learner or another because of your choice of medium. You might use prompts like these or create your own:

  • In your own words, can you describe what decentralization means for the Internet?
  • Why might centralized control of the web by a few companies be unhealthy for the Internet?
  • What are some ways you can decentralize what you do on the web to promote Internet health? How might you add content, connections, or innovations to the web?

  Learn more about decentralization with the Internet Health Report!

  Next activity→Openness Activity