You have been building things that connect: a website, a model that watches a camera, devices that talk over radio. When your work goes online, or when you use other people's work, two questions come up at once. What are you allowed to expect from others? And what do others get to expect from you?
Today you sort those into rights and responsibilities, fix one concrete line on a project of your own, and write the right and responsibility you will stand over.
Quick hook, not a lecture. Point at work the class already has (the website about their investigated problem, the model they trained, the radio micro:bit) so "connected creator" is about them, not a distant adult. If the school also offers JC Digital Media Literacy, note that this lesson overlaps its online-safety themes and you can cross-reference without redoing that ground.
A right is something you are entitled to. A responsibility is something you are expected to do. Online, the two travel together.
Three issues matter most for a connected creator:
- Privacy. Your personal details, photos, location and messages are yours to share or keep private, and other people have the same claim on theirs.
- Ownership of work. The code, writing, images and designs you make are your creative work. Copying someone else's work and presenting it as your own is not allowed. You may use other people's work only when a licence or clear permission lets you, and you still give credit when that is required.
- Staying safe. Passwords, what you post, who you talk to, and which links you open all affect you and the people around you. Safety is both a right and a responsibility.
Before you sort situations, look briefly at a real project on the board with your teacher. Spot what a visitor can already see about who made it, or about their data, and what is missing. You will fix a line like that on your own work later.
Keep the labels tight: name the three issues, one plain sentence each. Write Privacy, Ownership, Safety on the board as sort headings. Do not digress into a full GDPR lesson; if asked, note only that in Ireland and across the EU, data-protection rules (including GDPR) set legal limits on how organisations collect and use personal data.
Project peek (about 1–2 minutes): open one student project or the class template on the board. Ask: What will a visitor notice about who made this, or about their data, right now? Take two quick answers and point out a missing credit or privacy line. Do not edit yet. The point is that the later fix already feels like repairing something real.
Common misconceptions to head off: students often think "if it is on the internet it is free to use" (ownership still applies; credit alone is not permission). Another: privacy is only about strangers (classmates' photos and group chats count too).
Work in pairs. For each situation below, decide:
- Which issue is it mainly about: privacy, ownership, or safety?
- What is the fairest thing to do, and why?
- Is a right being ignored, a responsibility being skipped, or both?
Spend about three minutes per situation. Be ready to defend one answer to the class.
The situations
- You built a short animation for your website. A classmate downloads it, removes your name, and puts it on their own page as if they made it.
- A group chat from your year is screenshot and posted on a public account. Someone in the chat is clearly identifiable and did not agree to be shared.
- A friend asks for your school account password "just to check one thing". They promise to log out straight away.
Before the activity
Pairs or threes. Display the three core situations on the board so nobody needs a handout. Keep a visible timer: about three minutes per situation, then a short harvest.
Suggested timing
- About 5 minutes working the three situations.
- About 2 minutes hearing two or three defended answers from the room.
Look-fors and defensible calls
- 1 Ownership. The animation is the first student's work. Removing the name and claiming it is dishonest; the right ignored is the maker's ownership.
- 2 Privacy (and safety). Identifiable chat content shared without consent. Both a privacy breach and a safety risk.
- 3 Safety. Never share a password. The responsibility sits with the account holder; "just this once" is still unsafe.
Extension and share-back cards (early finishers or quick jigsaw)
- E0 Privacy (parked fourth situation). Your micro:bit project logged movement data during PE. A teammate wants to post the full class list of readings, with names, on a public scoreboard. Named readings about people are personal data. Posting them publicly without clear consent is not OK; aggregate or anonymous figures are a different question.
- E1 Ownership. A free photo online has no name and no licence. No name and no licence is not permission. Fair move: find a source that clearly allows reuse, use your own image, or credit a known open licence only when that licence allows it.
- E2 Ownership and honesty. AI drafted a paragraph; the student rewrote most of it. Help is often fine when it is allowed and noted; presenting AI text as wholly your own is not. Link to the class AI ground rules. The defensible call is honesty about what help was used.
Teaching tips
Push for "both a right and a responsibility" language on at least one situation. If debate stalls, ask: Who is harmed if we get this wrong? Keep the tone practical, not preachy. Treat students as creators with judgement, not as rule-breakers to be warned. Move on promptly so the project edit can start while the missing-line peek is still fresh.
Open a project you have already built that goes online or shares data: your website, a page about your investigated problem, or notes tied to your micro:bit work. If that file is missing, open the class template page your teacher has ready (a simple page with a placeholder footer) and work on a copy of that instead.
Before you change anything, look at what a visitor or classmate would see right now, the same way you did with the project on the board. Then replace or add one visible line that puts a right or responsibility into the work itself:
- Ownership: a short credit or licence line (for example, "Created by [your name]. Images used under [licence name]."), or
- Privacy: a plain privacy note (for example, "This page does not collect your name or location." or "Camera data stays on this device.").
Preview or run the project so the new line is visible on screen. Leave the project open; you will need it in a moment.
Before the lesson: pre-stage one simple class template page (a short HTML page or shared doc is enough) with a clear placeholder footer such as "Credit or privacy line goes here". Host it where every student can open a fresh copy in under a minute (shared drive link, LMS, or a bookmarked URL). You can also keep one shared sample project ready to fork. Nobody should be stuck hunting for a lost file.
Link back to the board peek from step 2: students are now fixing the same kind of gap on their own surface. Circulate and keep it to one clear line, not a full redesign. Prefer their own prior work; the template is the recovery path so every student still edits a real surface.
Common snag: students write a vague footer ("© me"). Push for a concrete credit or a concrete privacy claim that matches what the project actually does. Ask them to leave the project open for the share in the next step.
On your own, write two short statements as a connected creator. Use the three issues from earlier (privacy, ownership, safety), the situations you sorted, and the line you just added to your project.
- One right you claim for yourself online. Start with "I have a right to…" and finish with a concrete example from your own projects or accounts.
- One responsibility you accept. Start with "I have a responsibility to…" and finish with something you can actually do.
Done looks like this:
- Both statements are specific, not vague ("be nice online" is too thin).
- Each one names privacy, ownership, or safety, or clearly sits under one of them.
- You could read either statement aloud and stand over it.
Example pair:
- I have a right to decide who sees photos from our project webcam (privacy).
- I have a responsibility not to post a classmate's micro:bit PE readings with names (privacy).
Keep your project with the new credit or privacy line open on screen. Be ready if you are asked to read your pair aloud while that line is still visible.
About six minutes writing, then a one-minute share. Circulate and push vague answers into concrete ones. "I have a right to privacy" becomes stronger as "I have a right to decide who sees photos of me from the project webcam". "I have a responsibility to be careful" becomes "I have a responsibility not to post a classmate's data without asking".
In the final minute, invite two or three students to read their right/responsibility pair aloud while their project (with the new credit or privacy line) is still on their screen or mirrored to the board. The point is that the writing stays tied to something they built, not a free-floating PSHE slip.
If anyone freezes, point them back to situation 1, 2 or 3 from the sorting step, the extension PE-data card if they saw it, or to the credit or privacy line they just added, and ask which side of it they want to stand on.
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