Community reviews for Digital Compass

I really liked all of the scenarios, and I also liked that kids are encouraged to go through the stories making different choices. We ran into tech issues, however. We had problems running it in Chrome, and had to adjust setting (which was a learning experience in itself.) Also, progress was lost and the little certificate that shows progress often disappears.

I love this website. I have used it for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. However, even though the 3rd graders were able to finish the scenarios, complete the games, even ask for the website after class so they could use it at home, I feel that this website is made for students who typically have more access online that most 3rd graders actually use. This website is highly interactive, appealing, and the students love it! I can’t speak highly enough of the great discussion and that followed afterward. Students where reflecting on their discussions and even defending what they did reasonably. I would love to teach older students with this tool and use it at an even deeper level.

I really enjoyed Digital Compass. Although, characters were used in the game, the situations were realistic. It was a great tool to assess what the students learned, especially that students could print their score. Digital Compass took real life internet situations and made the the game educational, fun, and accessible at the same time. What more could an educator ask for, when teaching such a critical unit?

This is a great tool. Kids love being able to choose an avatar then choosing the different scenarios. They usually complete each story at least twice - trying different answers to see the results. Later in the quarter, I'll hear kids say, "Oh, I learned about this in that game we played!" This is always a plus. The downside has been the amount of time it takes the game to load. During the first couple classes of the day, it loads quickly, but by 9:30 or so, it can take anywhere between a couple minutes to eight minutes to load.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I like this product. I have used it for as young as 5th grade (who had already completed Digital Passport) and old as incoming 9th graders. All have been highly engaged in and the teaching moments that have come out of it are priceless. This is a great tool to enhance our students understanding of the digital world that they live and some of the consequences that come with their decisions. A couple of things to be aware of: 1) There are no student accounts, so progress is not saved if you are set up to have your browser clear out its cache every time it is closed out. 2) There are no assessments or specific assignments attached to the lessons. You will need to come up with your own processing assignments. I like to have the students journal their thoughts and incorporate writing somehow.

I like the opportunity each use has to go back and redo the modules as many times as they want. I will encourage my students to use this for review throughout the semester. We did have some difficulty with a few signing in, so perhaps some password recovery option would be helpful as they are used to that. Every student seemed to enjoy and connect to at least one of the situations.

This project is an excellent teaching tool because it keeps the students engaged and interested in the product. This teaches the students about digital citizenship in a fun way and if you keep adding modules on it, it will keep the students engaged and wanting to keep playing the game.

I really love this tool. Students like to listen to the stories and play the games most of the time. The only negative is that sometimes the students have a hard time with a longer story that contains many outcomes and want to jump to the game. The Seven game on Copyright is pretty meaty for my students (6th and 7th grade) and it may work better to just have it on Copyright. I know you may have to change the game. I award a small class grade for their scores/badges. Sometimes site navigation throws them off, particularly when getting their certificates to print.

I enjoyed this digital compass as a teaching tool for 10-11 y.o. students and they were riveted by the cartoon stories. We interacted with each decision and discussed why one idea was more safe/appropriate/showed good character. I think kids could play the games by themselves and signing up with an account or with their parents. Each story would take 15 minutes if you discuss with them the options. I think there is value in discussing the actions of the characters and every one has multiple options/endings that you can use to change the stories.

It is a great teaching tool for teaching responsible Digital Citizenship since almost every high school student has a Phone (or a better more realistic way of stating it would be) "hand held computer" which means they are constantly connected to the outside world sometimes during class.