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Creating a Safe Online Profile
|Grades||9 – 12|
|Activity Time||60 to 90 minutes (can be completed over several days)|
In this activity, teenagers explore online names by looking at sample e-mail addresses to determine what they can tell about the person who uses the account. After this exploration, teens choose a screen name or e-mail address for themselves as well as decide on personal details to include on a safe online profile.
Naming takes on new meanings in digital settings. As people build personas through e-mail addresses, screen names, and online profiles, they can be unaware of the ways that others read the aliases, names, and other information that they choose and share. In this activity, teens think critically about what they communicate to their audience when they choose a name for an online space and to consider how and when the names they choose are appropriate for specific audiences of readers.
This activity was modified from the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet."