An ordinary day

Reading Time: Minutes

Personal responsibility – 9–12 years – 90 mins

Clocking mobile use times

Mobile phone use and penetration is very high, even for young children, who are already using phones routinely. It can happen quite quickly that a child’s cell phone becomes their indispensable companion – and not everyone is aware of how often, for how long and for what the child is using the phone.

Mobile usage times is a topic that generates a lot of discussion between children, adolescents and adults. The project idea “An ordinary day” can be used to bring up the subject in various educational scenarios as well as in family life.

Getting children and adolescents to deal with the topic of media usage times based on real-world experience and for them to train their ability to reflect and make responsible choices for themselves.

The children and adolescents

reflect on their own everyday media use,

can formulate their own opinions about their media use but also recognize problems.

The children and adolescents

are able to discern what is important for their own media behavior,

can use media in a goal-oriented way.

The children and adolescents

show respect for the opinions of others in the small group work,

exchange arguments and learn to find a joint solution.

The children and adolescents

recognize the importance of a rigorous and prudent use of media,

note what is important to others in their media usage and compare this with their own actions.

Project procedure

How do I use my phone day to day and what exactly am I doing with it? Reflecting on one’s own phone usage is a good way to start a discussion about mobile use times.

The story “Trixi and her phone – an ordinary day” (SCROLLER, issue 1 Jan 2016, p. 24/25) is a good opener. The “round robin” method for brainstorming is a good way to gather ideas about the topic. It’s a good idea to do this in small groups at first and then have everyone share their results with the whole class in a second step.

To get started, have the children read the story “Trixi and her phone – an ordinary day” by SCROLLER, the media magazine for children from the Teachtoday initiative (read here this site).

Then, the children will be asked to enter how often and how they use their own phones in the blanks provided in the story.

Recording results: Documentation individual daily schedule
Social form: Individual work

The “round robin” method:
In small groups of between four and six children, a sheet of paper prepared with a question or statement (e.g. “I always bring my phone with me into my bedroom at night.”) is given to each child. The each child writes his or her response to the question or statement and then passes the paper on in a clockwise direction. Since each child reads the preceding child’s response and writes their own in turn, the text gets longer and longer as they add to each other’s notes on the piece of paper.

The paper continues to make the rounds for a specified time. Remember to let the children have more time with each turn so that they can read what everyone before them has written.

Recording results: Statements
Social form: Group work

After the statements have made the rounds, the results of the entire learning group are presented and categorized together.

Recording results: Presentation
Social form: Presentation to whole class

Learning objectives in the areas of competence

This project idea can be used in various educational institutions and is ideal for pursuing the following learning objectives in these general competency areas: