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The Three-Legged Stool

Run the Three-Legged Stool MicroSim Fullscreen

You can include this MicroSim on your website using the following iframe:

1
<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/digital-citizenship/sims/three-legged-stool/main.html" height="582px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Description

This MicroSim uses a simple stool metaphor to help students remember that three things always travel together for a digital citizen:

  • Opportunities (river-blue) — the cool things you get to do online
  • Responsibilities (soft green) — the things you are expected to do for others
  • Rights (warm gold) — the protections that keep you safe and treated fairly

All three legs are drawn the same length on purpose. A stool with three equal legs stays balanced. A stool missing a leg tips over — and so does a digital citizen who forgets one of these three ideas.

How to use it:

  • Click any leg to learn what it means and see a short example.
  • A golden ring shows which leg is selected.
  • After selecting a leg, click the red button to see what happens when that leg is missing — the stool tilts and the student looks worried.
  • Click the green button to put the leg back.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to explain the three things that always travel together for a digital citizen (Opportunities, Responsibilities, and Rights) and describe why balance among all three matters.

  • Bloom Level: Understand (L2)
  • Bloom Verb: Explain
  • Library: p5.js

Lesson Plan

Time: 10–15 minutes

Before the MicroSim (2 minutes)

Ask the class: "Imagine a three-legged stool. What happens if one leg is shorter than the others? What happens if one leg is missing? What does the stool have to do if it wants to stay up?"

Tell students that today they will see how being a digital citizen is like a three-legged stool.

During the MicroSim (5–8 minutes)

Have students work in pairs or individually:

  1. Click each of the three legs and read what each one means.
  2. For each leg, write in your notebook one thing from your own life online that fits that leg (one opportunity, one responsibility, one right).
  3. Use the "What if…was missing?" button for each leg. What do you notice about the stool and the student?

After the MicroSim (3–5 minutes)

Class discussion:

  • Why did the designer make all three legs the same color-size? What would change if the "Rights" leg was twice as long?
  • Which leg is easiest to forget about when you are online? Why?
  • Can you think of a time in real life when someone had an opportunity online but forgot the responsibility that went with it?

Accommodations

  • For ELL students: Pre-teach the words opportunity, responsibility, and right with simple examples before students open the MicroSim.
  • For students who finish early: Ask them to draw their own version of the stool and write a one-sentence motto under each leg in their own words.

References

  • Common Sense Education. Digital Citizenship Curriculum, Grade 5. https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/curriculum
  • ISTE Standards for Students (2016). Standard 2: Digital Citizen.
  • Ribble, M. (2015). Digital Citizenship in Schools (3rd ed.). International Society for Technology in Education.
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