California Career and Technical Education Standards

• IT.FS.6.1 Know policies, procedures, and regulations regarding health and safety in the wo...
• IT.FS.6.3 Understand the environmental and ergonomic risks associated with the use of busi...

California Academic Content Standards (Reinforced)

• ELA.9-10.W.2.6c Write technical documents that include scenarios, definitions, and examples to a...

• How NOT to treat your computer - Hooks / Set

  Students enter the classroom and find their seats.  Have computers in room shut down or logged off. 

  Greet your students and tell them that today they are going to learn the rules of working in a computer lab classroom and how to be safe while using their computer.

  Tell them about a 1 to 2 minute personal story of a frustrating moment working on the computer.   Ask students if they have any stories of having a bad day with their computer or something bad happening to it.  Then introduce video "here is a man having a bad day with his computer" and show video. (Man having a bad day with his computer)

  After the video, remind them its important to treat their computer properly and with respect and it is important to be safe while using their computer in class and at home.

  • Bad day on the computer [ Watch Video ] [ Download Original Video ] video of office worker who is taking his bad day out on his computer
  • Second "bad day" video [ Watch Video ] [ Download Original Video ]
• Introduction to Computer Safety - Lecture

  Whether or not a student has taken a class in a computer lab, they need to be informed on how to work safely in their classroom, the rules of the lab, ergonomics and working safely on the computer.  Items to be discussed include:

  1.      Food/drink in the lab. Explain why it is important that they don’t have food and drinks by the equipment, why liquids should not be near electrical outlets, keyboards.  Tell students where these items should be placed, in their bags, a special place in the classroom, in the trash.

  2.      Books/backpacks/personal items.  Explain to students why they need to put their belongings and where in the classroom these items should be placed.  Explain the safety hazards of backpacks being in pathways of where students are walking or how they might cause problems during fire alarms.  Go over what books and materials they will use in the class and where they should store other items they bring to the room, like sports equipments, balloons, projects from other classes.

  3.      Have students get up from desks and have them locate the cords from computers to networks outlets and electrical outlets.  Discuss the hazards of the cords, what should be touched and not touched.  This will be modified to your specific classroom set up and how your equipment is installed in your room.

  4.      Manners in the lab.  Discuss with students expected behavior in lab, no running or horseplay, if and when they are allowed to use other student’s computers, printer etiquette (where to get paper, what to do with papers left on printer, how many students allowed at printer at one time).

  5.      Ergonomics.  Define for them the term ergonomics.  Have student volunteer come to the front of the class and sit in a chair at a table.  Have volunteer model correct behavior while you go over the basics of sitting properly at their computer.  Include the following:

  a.       Sitting with back straight, shoulders relaxed, feet flat on floor

  b.      Adjust chair height so eyes are level or slightly higher than the monitor

  c.       Keep wrists straight while using keyboard and mouse

  d.      Discuss the future health problems that could occur from not developing proper habits now, including back/neck strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, repetitive stress syndrome

  6.      Internet safety.  Discuss with students why it is important that they practice safety habits while they are online.  Include the following:

  a.       How to tell if a website is safe for using personal information.

  b.      Sharing personal information on the web.

  c.       Posting pictures on the internet (and how they can never be taken back)

  d.      How they don’t really know who is on the other side of a chat room or instant messaging
• Safety Poster Creation - Demo / Modeling

  Explain to students that they are going to create a poster on one of the safety issues that was discussed and that afterwards, students will present their poster to the class and explain one rule or safety tip that they learned and why it is important.

  Model to students what a good poster looks like compared to a bad poster.  The elements when creating a poster they should be aware of are:  using complementary colors, colors that attract a viewer to stop and look at the poster, a clear message should be evident, use the right images to convey their message.  Show "bad" poster to class and discuss. (there's no clear message on what it is saying about internet safety, picture is vague) Show the "good" poster and disucss. (has clearer message, skull and crossbones attract attention of viewer, simple graphic that clearly supports message)

  Model to students how to present their tip to the class.  Hold up the good poster and give a sample tip.  For example "I learned that I should be careful when I am using the internet because anyone can go online and pretend to be someone else.  This is important because I could possibly give personal information to someone who might use it to harm me."

  • Poor Safety Poster example [ Download ] example of a poorly designed safety poster
  • Good Safety Poster example [ Download ] example of a well designed safety poster
• Check for Understanding - Check Understanding

  Ask students questions to make sure they understand the topic of safety and what elements the poster need to have.  Be sure to wait 3-5 seconds before calling on student.  Call on a variety of achievement level students.

  Questions you can ask:

  1.  Who can tell me one of the safety topics we discussed? (keep calling on students until all topics have been mentioned)

  2. What is something your poster should have so someone will stop and look at it? (good colors, clear message, right image for message)

  3.  What two things do you have to tell the class when you show your poster? (one rule or tip you learned and why it is important)
• Brainstorming Time - Guided Practice

  Break students into groups of 2 - 3 (3 is better if you can).  Ideas to break up students into groups:  numbering them off, letting them pick their own groups, having them line up by birthdate and then teacher pairs them up.

  Have paper and pencil or pen for each group.  Have students sit with their group.  Once seated, tell the group that on the count of three, everyone in the group will point to the person in their group that will be the recorder.  Count 1-2-3 and whoever has the most fingers pointed at them in their group is the recorder.  If there is a tie, have them do rock-paper-scissors to decide.  The class then has to write down as many things as they remember that was discussed about safety.  Each person must say at least one thing, but they should try and come up with as many as they can.  I give 5 minutes to do this, and I watch the clock, giving warnings when there is one minute left and thirty seconds left.  Teacher goes from group to group listening in and helping to prompt if there is no discussion going on.  If the students are really actively discussing, I may let the time go on a minute or two more, if they groups finish quickly, I may reduce the time, be flexible with each class and their ability levels.

  At time, the groups will share out.  Each recorder will stand and read their list of safety rules and tips and the teacher writes them on the board.  Write all ideas, even if they overlap or don't exactly pertain to what was previously discussed.  After all groups have shared, give students a minute or two to read the board and ask them to think about which ones go together.  Use a different colored marker to indicate which ones go together, for example, write "Internet Safety" in blue and then circle (with input from students) all the ones that go with that topic in blue.  Anything that doesn't fit in, explain why it doesn't fit in class discussion.  For example, a student might say "always drive the speed limit" and the teacher could respond, "that's a good safety tip for driving and luckily computers dont' have a speed limit, we always want them to go faster!"
• Creating Posters for Classroom Safety - Independent Practice

  Using the topics on the board, each group will create a poster on one of the safety topics.  Give the groups time to discuss which topic they would like and each person in the group should pick something specific that they want to put on the poster and to present to the class.  For example, one group may pick Food and Drinks in the lab and students in the group could do things like one shows soda spilling in the keyboard, another showing food stuck on the monitor screen and another could show trash all over the computer lab with mice running around the floor.  Remind students of the design ideas you are looking for, clear message, good colors, images that match the topic.

  Have poster making supplies ready, paper, markers, colored pencils, crayons, glue, scissors.  If you have a color printer available, then decide ahead of time if they can use images from the internet.  If they can use the internet, I limit how many graphics they can print and how much time they can spend on the internet looking for graphics.  (or, have just one person from each group that can go online, otherwise, the whole group may spend the entire time fooling around online and not really working)  I have also done this lesson with students who have already taken previous computer classes, and I have let them create the poster entirely on the computer using whatever software they are comfortable with.  The only problem with that is making sure all are participating, if you have them do a physcial poster, they can all work on it at the same time.
• Show Us What You Learned - Closure

  Each student groups share the poster they created.  Each group must come to the front of the class and display their work.  Each student shares one safety rule or tip related to their topic and explain why that rule is important.

  Before the presentations, tell the class that they will have to report back to the teacher three rules that learned from other groups, so they need to make sure they listen to what each group has to say.

No resources are included, yet.