This year GSUSA introduced Digital Leadership badges at all levels. This post will take a look at the Brownie Version. I have reviewed the plans on VTK and summarized them below. I have not reviewed he badge pamphlet and do not know what additional information or activities it may have.
Requirements:
Brownies find out how technology, like computers, tablets, or smartphones, can help them to be a leader who teaches, inspires, and makes the world a better place.
Steps
1. Explore your communities.
2. Discover your digital footprint.
3. Examine what's true and not.
4. Design a digital community.
5. Create content for change.
Purpose: When Brownies earn this badge, they'll know how to lead in the digital world. They'll know how to use technology to make the internet and world a better place.
Explore Your Communities
After an opening discussion about things that can be found in digital forms and other forms, such as ebooks/books, videos vs going someplace, watching a video at home vs going to the movies, etc, girls move to the Explore your Communities requirement.
After a discussion of digital communities, girls look at some emojis and then write a story using emojis about a time that a community worked together. After the girls share their stories, the leader goes over some ways to "lead" and to balance screen time and other time.
The second choice for this requirement is to talk about communities they belong to both online and offline. Point out that online game play is a community as is Girl Scouts. Then the girls do skits based on one line of the Girl Scout Law and how it relates to their community. After the girl share their skits, the leader goes over ways to lead by balancing screen time vs non-screen time.
The third choice relates this to cookie sales. The leader explains that when we sell Girl Scout Cookies we are a community working toward a common goal. Then the girls make a video related to selling cookies. The meeting ends with the leader talking about leadership and screen time.
Discover Your Digital Footprint
The first activity has the girls discussing that footprints show that someone has been in an area and that digital footprints make it possible for people to follow you online. They go through various types of information about themselves (favorite color, address, name, favorite book etc.) and divide them into things it is okay to share publicly and thing we do not share online. Then the girls create artwork about themselves using information it is okay to share.
The second activity has the troop having much the same discussion and then the girls put together an online profile for Juliette Gordon Low.
For the third activity the leader points out that the girls' badges serve as a footprint of their Girl Scout activities. They make vests or sashes out of paper and create badges with information about themselves that it is okay to share in public.
All three options end with the leader talking about ways to stay safe online: Check with an adult, Don't share private information and Don't talk to strangers.
Examine What Is True and What Is Not
The first choice fo this requirement is called "Spot the fake". The leader brings in magazines and video and talks about how they could be altered, and then has the girls examine them to see if they can spot where things were edited. She gives the girls a list of things to do such as 1) Look at the photo or video carefully, 2) read or listen to the words carefully, 3) figure out who created it and 4) be yourself and don't compare. The talking points do mention that sometimes we can't tell if things have been altered.
The second choice is called "Pretend to be someone else". After a discussion about how things are not always what they seem to be and that special effects and filters can change what we see, the leader also talks about "catfish", people who pretend to be something else online. After guessing what certain props mean or are supposed to make you think, girls put on costumes and pretend to be someone they are not, and then discuss how easy it is to pretend to be who you are not.
The third choice has pretty much the same talking points as the other two, but the girls' activity is to digitally edit a photograph.
Design a Digital Community
For the opening activity for meeting two, girl use token to vote for a favorite picture. Then the leader talks about how they feel knowing other people voted like they did, or didn't. She talks about using technology to connect with other people and teach them or inspire them to make a difference in the world.
The first choice for this requirement is a discussion about values and how those values affect our behavior. The leader then tells the girls that they are digital leaders and set an example for others. They come up with a troop mission statement that incorporates their values. The girl brainstorm situations they might encounter online that could challenge their values and then break into groups to do skits showing how they would handle the situations. They discuss how each group handled its situation and if there were other ways to do so.
The second choice has pretty much the same discussion about values and a troop mission statement. Then the girls create a song that incorporates the values of a community they belong to. The leader records the song and helps the girls share it--and if possible lets them use editing software on it.
The final choice is to illustrate the values discussion, which in this case focuses on the Girl Scout Law, in a troop mural which the leader photographs and shares.
Create Content for Change
The first choice is to pick a topic you want to teach the world about and do a slideshow, either with a computer or with crayons and paper. The second choice is to make a poster and the third choice is to use some other digital content such as a website, an email, an app, a video, or a game. If they can't use a computer at the meeting, they can draw a mock-up.
Research materials or computers should be provided. The talking points deal with figuring out who you are addressing and how to get your message across.
Resources Provided
The following resources are provided on VTK
- Girl Survey--the same one that goes with all the recent STEM programming;
- A take-home sheet telling parents what they did for the badge and giving suggestions for online safety;
- Before and After photos--one edited, one supposedly original;
- Glossary containing twelve words and definitions;
- Mystery items photos--used for opening activity, meeting 2
- Information on Juliette Gordon Low
- Emoji examples
- Internet Safety Pledge
- Girl Scout Promise and Law
My Comments
As seems to be the norm now, this badge plan is a unified lesson plan, not a collection of activities. In fact, without the leader talking points, there is little to tie the activities together. In fact, several of them seem very much like activities from other badges (the mural, the skits on the Girl Scout Law, the cookie selling video, discussions about staying safe online).
I think this would be a good badge to tie into a Take Action Project or some other project that the girls are excited about. Otherwise I think that "Create Content for Change" sounds a lot like today's version of "Write a Report", and I don't think that's what girls want to do at a Girl Scout meeting.
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