VOLUNTEER RESOURCES
Through Savvy Cyber Kid’s HERO Volunteer Program, you can help children from Pre-K through 2nd grade learn how to remain safe and be empowered to make appropriate decisions in the online world.
How to be a successful Savvy Cyber Kids Volunteer:
- Reach out to your local schools and make them aware of SavvyCyberKids.org as a resource to strengthen their digital citizenship and cyber ethics programming.
- Volunteer to read the Savvy Cyber Kids at Home Book Series at your local schools (virtually or in person) and lead the Savvy Cyber Kids lessons plans for each book for children Pre-K through 2nd grade. If going in person, please purchase at least one full set (all three books) to bring with you and leave behind at the school you visit. Download the free lesson plans and activity sheets below (students can also use a blank sheet of paper to do the activity instead of the Savvy Cyber Kids sheets below). You do not need to read all the books or do all the lessons. You should plan to just read and do the lesson plan for the first book in the series, The Family Gets a Computer. Reading the book while asking related questions, having the students create their own CyberHero identity and presenting their new online identity to the class should take roughly 45min – 1 hour.
- For virtual sessions, use the electronic versions of the books located here. If doing live, in-person sessions volunteers are encouraged to purchase at least one full set (all three books) to bring with them and leave behind at the school. For descriptions of each book, and links to purchase on Amazon, visit: https://savvycyberkids.org/shop/books-for-children.
- Email us at info@savvycyberkids.org to let us know the school where you read and placed the books.
- Follow us on social media, share your volunteer experience, and tag us @SavvyCyberKids:
By engaging the commitment of parents, teachers and the community, we can raise awareness and impart a sense of cyber ethics into the minds of children. We appreciate you being a Savvy Cyber Kids Volunteer HERO at your local school!
Free Resources for HERO Volunteers:
Today’s youth are growing up in a world that encourages a deep involvement with technology, influencing their everyday, even moment to moment, activities. Yet these same children are oftentimes unsupervised and unprepared to play safely on the digital playground—where they can very easily make bad and potentially dangerous decisions.
The Challenges of Parenting in the Digital Age
There was a time when the childhood lessons of ‘don’t talk to strangers,’ and the ‘golden rule’ was enough to keep kids safe. These lessons could be applied to more mature circumstances as the child aged and because kids learned them young, they were better equipped to make safe decisions when they got older. But times have changed. Technology happened.
By middle school, most kids have a cell phone and a window into a world of trouble. Born into a world surrounded in every possible way by technology, pre-teens and teens are inevitably drawn to their phones. The places they can go, the people they can meet—and yes, the dangers they can get into, all from the safety of their homes and schools are limitless.
That’s a lot of responsibility and sometimes it’s not that easy to make the right choice or understand potential consequences behind a screen, with abundant seemingly grey area to navigate. As parents and teachers, we are doing pre-teens a disservice to not prepare them for the complexities of life—particularly the complexities of making smart decisions online.
You Can Help
Savvy Cyber Kids’ CyberHERO Volunteer Programs bring volunteers like you into schools to help young children learn about personal internet safety, bully response, technology balance, digital reputation and privacy. You will help the children learn how to remain safe and be empowered to make appropriate decisions when using the technology they love. As a Savvy Cyber Kids HERO Volunteer, you can help us reach more schools and teach children about how to stay safe online.
How to be a successful Savvy Cyber Kids Volunteer:
- Reach out to your local schools and make them aware of SavvyCyberKids.org as a resource to strengthen their digital citizenship and cyber ethics programming
- Use the attached presentation slides and presenter’s guide to lead school-based programs.
- Email us at info@savvycyberkids.org to let us know the school where you presented.
- Follow us on social media, share your volunteer experience, and tag us @SavvyCyberKids:
By engaging the commitment of parents, teachers and the community, we can raise awareness and impart a sense of cyber ethics into the minds of children. We appreciate you being a Savvy Cyber Kids Volunteer HERO at your local school!