Privacy Basics: Protect Your Data | Privacy Coach

• Preparation

  Learning Progression

  In this lesson, your learners will:

  1. Each pick a topic from this module that interests them.
  2. Prototype learning resources (like a game, map, or poster) that teach other people about their topics.
  3. Reflect on their learning.

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  You should...

  Do the activity on your own to see how each piece works.

  Create a teaching and learning resource about privacy to serve as a mentor text, example, or model for your learners. Make more than one if you have the time to show them a few possibilities for their work today.

• Introduction

  5 minutes

  Explain to your learners that today they'll be making their own teaching and learning resource that they can use to teach their friends and families about privacy and protecting personal data online.

  They should work towards prototypes today - quick, rough drafts that show what they want to teach and how they want to teach it. They can revise and polish these projects later on their own or with the whole group if you make more time for this project.

  Ask learners to pick a topic you covered in this module that seems especially interesing to them. Each learner will make a teaching and learning resource about the topic they pick.

  Remind your learners of the topics you covered and share this list with them in the way that's most accessible for them. Tell them that they can make recources about topics like these:

  • What are IP addresses and how do they work?
  • What can IP addresses tell us about someone's location in the real world?
  • How can we tell if a password is weak or strong?
  • What makes a password bad or weak? Which ones should we avoid?
  • What makes a password good or secure or strong? How can we make those?
  • What are cookies and what is online tracking?
  • How can we see how companies and websites track us with cookies?
  • How can we manage our privacy settings in a browser to prevent or delete cookies and tracking?
  • What is a data trail timeline? How do I find my own data trail?
  • How can I manage my privacy choices throughout the day to leave less of a data trail behind me?

  Answer any questions your learners have about these topics. If a learner asks about another topic related to privacy, encourage them to work on that topic, even if it's not on your original list.

  Ask your learners to pick their topics and then go on to the next step.

• Prototyping a Teaching and Learning Resource

  35 minutes

  Tell your learners that they'll each use most of today's time to prototype a quick, rough draft of a teaching and learning resource about the topic they chose. A teaching and learning resource can be anything that helps a friend, family member, or anyone else understand their topic better.

  For example, they could make:

  • A comic, zine, or other story about their topic.
  • A game about their topic.
  • An infographic or poster about their topic.
  • A skit about their topic.
  • A slide deck about their topic.
  • A (short) video about their topic.

  If you have examples of resources you've made, share them with your learners now.

  If a learner has another idea of what to prototype, encourage them to make it.

  Invite your learners to work in whatever medium appeals to them. Some may wind up working online while others use markers and paper.

  The big idea is to have learners create authentic, relevant products they can use in their own lives to teach other people what they've discovered about privacy and protecting data online.

  Help learners who are struggling with decisions to pick a topic and a medium and to begin.

  With the last 5 minutes of this step, bring the group back together and ask volunteers to share what they've made or invite everyone to go on a "gallery walk" around the room to see what their peers have made.

  Encourage learners to take their work with them (or to make it shareable online) and to test it with friends and family members to teach others about what they've learned in this module about privacy and protecting data online.

  If you want to extend this activity, you can provide more time to revise and polish learners' prototypes and set up some kind of event during which they can share their work with authentic audiences such as younger children, seniors, or other community groups interested in learning more about the web. If you do so, you should develop additional supports and rubrics for learners' work to help them prepare it for sharing.

• Reflection and Assessment

  5 minutes

  Finish today's lesson by facilitating a brief, reflective discussion of what your learners discovered about their own data trail timelines. Use the questions below or create your own. You can record learners' responses for the purposes of assessment, but be sure to use technologies that allow them their fullest range of expression.

  • What was easiest about making your teaching and learning resource? What seemed most difficult?
  • How might you share your work and test it with others who want to learn about data and privacy?
  • In your own words, what are your biggest discoveries or take-aways about data and privacy?
  • How might you change some of your habits and choices to protect your privacy and data more than you do now?
  • How important is it to you to protect your data and privacy from companies and websites? Why?

  Curious to learn more about strong online safety habits? Check out this Privacy & Security Toolkit.