Ok, now I feel like this is going somewhere…

As we near the end of the term and the end (but not really) of my major digital project I feel that there is some worthwhile reflections to be made regarding how the project went.

First of all I found the experience of working with Eden planning and creating our digital citizenship introduction very rewarding.  She brought a lot of great insight and creativity to the lessons that we taught together.  It was great to co-plan something together, for me to have some new an fresh ideas coming from her and perhaps for her to have another teacher up in front of the class to help with those “internship skills” like pacing and questioning.  I think that both of us found the difference in the classrooms somewhat interesting.  In both classes we encountered a wide array of student knowledge and comfort around the internet and social media in general.  Only a few in each class had ever used Twitter, most weren’t really sure it’s purpose or why people would want to use it.  But by far the majority of student focus was around Snapchat and Instagram.  I think for me that was eye opening.  Personally I know very little about these sites and the capabilities of them.  But it may be worthwhile doing some of my own research into them.   This class has taught me that my students are finding ways to connect that they don’t always fully understand and so as an educator it would be a good idea to work with them to build both of our capacities.

In attempting to set up Twitter accounts for each student in the classroom I again learned a great deal about the permissions that need to be granted by the school division.  While our intentions were for educational purposes in the classroom, Twitter once set up, was going to be accessible to them anywhere.  So I felt the most worthwhile permissions was to open lines of communication with parents.  Letting them know that it is also their responsibility to help monitor and set expectations for their children outside of school use.  In the end about 20% of the students were not allowed their own Twitter accounts.  So I let them use the classroom account once I had signed in and they posted their initials with each tweet they sent so that I could give them credit for their participation.  I would venture to guess that most of the 20% who were not allowed to have accounts would likely have parents who themselves were not familiar with Twitter or come from households where the use of online resources was limited.  But I still felt that most got the experience that I was hoping for even though they did not have their own account.

I organized a few projects or assignments once the accounts were set up.  My goal here was for students to help build a feed under the hashtag, so that when they searched it, there was more than just me or Eden posting to the hashtag.  Initially my goal was to have other schools or classrooms join us.  But in spite my best plugs or requests, none really did.  However, our classroom account did gain some followers and we have been watching and interested in some of the things they tweeted.  This was most true during the Student Vote.  I thin that project became more worthwhile for them when they could see students voting from all across the country.   When the students actually started to post assignments from the Twitter Matrix I created I was glad to see them taking a few risks and including a couple of pictures and really broadening their understanding of what it means to be a good citizen, based on the stories and activities they posted.

Throughout the class and some of the topics we discussed in the lectures about participatory culture, I think that it was important for me to have switched gears towards the end of the project.  I was not satisfied that students were getting the most out of this experience because really the hashtag didn’t display any signs of the students interacting with what was posted there.  Sure they would scroll through, but they never commented/favourited/or replied to any of the posts by there classmates.  I now know that participation means more than just contributing.  I wanted my students to connect and interact with what others were posting.  By requiring them to comment or participate in the polls posted by other students I feel like I was finally getting to the heart of what I wanted my digital project to be.  Now at the beginning of class we are using our devices or computers to connect with some of the stories of the day, asking questions or posting replies on the news sites or creating and answering each others polls.

CC For all you future people who are going to make websites, DONT make your passwords easy to reach. https://t.co/2OeQaAQcuq #iam2yng2vote

— Cortney Leonard (@BESGR8) December 7, 2015

 

#iam2yng2vote https://t.co/rmkcMdNHBg

— Abby (@11abby112) December 7, 2015

 

https://t.co/YlmRPzK89y Albertan suicide rate up 30%. will it continue to increase? #iam2yng2vote

— Darby (@darbster1234) December 7, 2015

 

Teen invites Justin Trudeau to prom #iam2yng2vote. https://t.co/4gGg5X9lpr

— ED Gaming (@EDbrogamer) December 1, 2015

These posts have all lead to great classroom discussions.  Even as a class we will read and discuss some before I ask them to reply.  That way students who have difficulty forming an opinion on their own can listen to the discussion from others to help them in formulating their opinion.

In the end while I didn’t accomplish what I set up (you…changing the world!)  I do feel like we have made a great deal of progress.  I am excited to see what my class will be able to do with Twitter before the end of the year.  I have already thought about how we will support our learning during the upcoming provincial election using Twitter.  So even though this is the end of my project for this class, this has definitely lead to much more projects to come in the future.

 

Keeping Things in Perspective

As the semester begins to draw to a close it is good to spend some time reflecting on where we have been and some of the lessons or understandings gained along the way.

Personally as an educator I have always felt that the lives of my students are heavily impacted by the use of technology.  I have been very fortunate to have always been in a school with very supportive administrators who felt that the more exposure to technology we can grant students the more prepared they will be to not only use, but to engage  with technology in the future.  I can still remember the conversations had around the dismantling of our computer lab.  On one hand those that believed that technology needs to be integrated into the classroom, not just housed in a room that could be shared on a 6 day rotation vs. those who believe that technology is a one time event, like going to the gym for PE or bringing down the pastels for an art lesson.  I reflect back on that because I realize now that was really the start of a continuing path down the road of technology becoming an everyday part of our lives.  We have made the shift from “using technology” to more specifically “being connected” to the world around us, in ways that we haven’t in the past and in the constant evolution of what that means.  Specifically as a grade 8 teacher I understand that being connected impacts the whole student that I teach, academically, socially and emotionally.  As an educator then I have a responsibility to help my students learn how to navigate and be effective in that space.

How then do I approach digital citizenship in the classroom and in the curriculum?  I believe the answer is twofold.  First there are a set of “skills” that are important for all students to be able to function with their use of technology.  More basic tasks such as file saving and sharing, email, password protection, are very important as the student develops.  But in the later grades and depending on the student when they are ready maturity wise as well as comfortable they can start to participate in more meaningful ways.  Dave Cormier talked about MOOC’s and Rhizomatic Learning in the video below, the idea of a culture becoming a participatory culture where it isn’t enough anymore to passively be part of the learning, but to engage others in building our own learning.  While there are so many different ways for interaction to happen and so many skills involved in doing so, it is important to remember that participation does not happen over night or in one school year, but rather evolves and grows over several years.  As Andrew said in his post, the responsibility does not fall solely on us.  Rather it takes all of us as educators and parents to play a role both in our role modeling and our teaching of how to be a good digital citizen.

In addition to “connecting” with our learning, it has been suggested several times that technology use can help to broaden students abilities.  David Crystal suggest that the daily use of things like Twitter or texting is not hindering language but perhaps helping language to evolve.  Students today are creating a new norm in terms or language that we are engaging with.  But it is important to not judge their forms of communication because they are not what we as adults would consider most appropriate.

Also, participation in Twitter  could help to engage students in their learning and even help to give a voice to those that sometimes take a more passive role in their learning.  In one of my post’s I talked about the article that outlines how more university students are engaging with Twitter to communicate and contribute to discussions and dialogues about their learning because they are feeling more comfortable engaging in that fashion.

Also important to note is that we as educators also have a job to do in presenting technology in a more balanced approach.  We already know that our students are using technology in both their outside of school lives and perhaps in different ways than we are within the classroom.  As role models I think that it is important to help demonstrate that there is a balance between our online identities and our in life identities.  In Sherry Turkle’s article she talks about what might be lost in communication if we are never disconnecting from technology to have more meaningful engaging interactions.  While at the same time, we have read several articles that talk about how some students who never felt a sense of belonging, have been able to connect and feel like they belong because of space they have found online.

As educators I think that we also have a responsibility to some extent to the parents of the students that we teach.  We are a resource for parents who can offer help and support in how their students use technology and how they are engaging in the online world.  I think we have a responsibility to inform parents of some of the ways their students connect to the world around them.  I also believe that the greatest responsibility falls to the parents to be aware of what their children are doing and how they are spending their time in an online space.  At the end of the day, they spend the most time with their children and those times are definitely more unstructured and less supervised than the time at school they spend online.  As a resource we can also help parents to understand some of the dangers that could potentially exist for their children online.  As Jenn mentioned in her post, things like ghost apps are new potentially to them as well and so sharing information in order to help inform would be helpful.  Sharing perhaps some of the videos we talked about like Ron Jonson’s “One Tweet Can Ruin your Life” and “The Price of Shame”by Monica Lewinsky can help us give parents something to reflect back on in order to gain some perspective and better help their children navigate those spaces as well.

At the end of this class I have definitely spend some time thinking about how to better support and engage my students in online spaces.   In addition I understand better why we need to advocate for students to gain more access to spaces that give them a voice.  Yes, there are potential risks involved in doing so, but the more we educate, rather than fear monger, the safer we will keep our children.  The possibilities then become endless for them to participate and engage in the world larger than just the classroom.

We are all Makers and Contributors to Culure

This week I spent some time doing some reflecting on some of the new skills and literacies that the digital age expects of its learners and I wondered at the end, what is it all really for?  Are these skills really going to make a difference for students in how they learn and interact with their world?  Fitting that the next class and the one that I’m reflecting on for the week was regarding “Participatory Culture” and the age of “Remix.”

In my refection this week I wanted to spend more time exploring “Participatory Culture” and so I watched a video by Henry Jenkins who directed MITs Comparative Media Studies graduate degree program from 1993-2009.

Jenkins has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture.  Essentially the TED talk begins by focusing on the character of “Peter Parker” as many of us know as “Spider Man”  but he uses the comparison of Peter Parker to outline to the audience that Peter is really like many teens his age.  He  is able to do amazing things, that don’t have to do with his age, but they have to do with his participation on the web and gaining exposure through the voice that he finds online.  Ultimately, with that power he says that with teens are accessing online communities comes great responsibility to the world around them. The TED talk really emphasizes to me the important of young people taking the skills that they have and doing things in the world that matter, or being/becoming active social agents for change.  This generation has the tools and the resources to thing about/ engage/ respond to the changing world around us and the be part of that change.

Jenkins also talks about in the mix/remix culture we live in we are producing media that we then want to share with our friends and families, which then by nature grow or become communities of people who do something similar and learn from each other.  We throw ideas out and then bring them back in a new and better way than they were originally put out there.  This the the powerful new media that kids are engaging with.  This media has allowed for teens and young adults to find their voice and to help students engage in there communities for the betterment of their communities.

The Harry Potter Alliance is turning fans of the novels into heroes.  If you check out their website you will see that they claim themselves to be changing the world by making activism accessible through the power of story.  Since 2005, they have engaged millions of fans through our work for equality, human rights and literacy.  So what we are seeing is young fans of the novels are using their connection with the books to create a social movement that helps to make the world a better place (somewhat similar to what Harry was trying to do).

Teens and young adults are taking the messages that they want to share and creating engaging and interesting ways to engage the audience in the issues that matter to them.  Another interesting view that Jenkins addressed was their use of mix/remix skills to voice their political activist commentary.

Also, using their connections with popular culture to engage even more attention to their cause.

The TED talk really helped to bring things into perspective for me, as to the necessity for our commitment as teachers to help teach students the skills that they will need to be a part of this new way of communicating with the world.  I think that in many ways we have to be willing to venture down paths that we might yet not know the outcomes of, however we have to be okay with figuring things out as we go, because if we wait to make sure we have thought and rethought the consequences or the impact, we have to know that our kids won’t.  So better to guide them and learn along side with them rather than let them wonder with out guidance.  The last clip in the TED talk really helps us realize that we can’t simply try to remove these spaces from the school in the hopes of it going away.  With great power as teachers, comes great responsibility as well to embrace what the future holds.

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking and Hearing the new media literacies

This week as a content expert I wanted to spend some time looking into what are the new and emerging literacies that we associate with digital literacy and how do they connect to the classroom.

The first resource that I wanted to post about was “The New Media Literacies” which is a website that is committed to integrating media literacy into the classroom.  The video below talks about the need for a new set of skills to deal with our culture.  No longer are our students simply consumers of media, but we are entering a time where they are expected to be creators as well.  Many of them will want to add their mark to the media that they are using and consuming, which is different that how things were in the past.  They want to not simply create, but also to engage others in what they create.  For example, when I was younger I kept a journal, kids these days might keep a blog that they want the rest of the world to comment on, or a Facebook page where they might share pictures.

 

The website highlights as few of the emerging literacy skills that students will need for the future.  Out of the ten listed, there were a few that I think have had the greatest impact on me and my classroom.  One of the first skills was “judgement”, students are expected today to be able to navigate through various forms of media and use their critical thinking skills to determine the most appropriate response to that media.  It takes a tremendous amount of strategies and understanding to be able to make judgments like this on the web.  I think that often as adults we take for granted the ability to recognize “truth” and to determine the correct course of action.  As educators, and for students these days it is really trial by fire.  They are accessing and interacting perhaps before they realize the implications of what they are doing.

The other skill that I wanted to touch on was “appropriation.”  We have talked about this generations desire to create and recreate, or mix and remix as a form of expression.  Even for adults the lines of copyright and “original” are blurred with media cultures ability to take what is out there and interact with it or to create something different.  Many of us as educators often don’t expect kids to create in the same way that they are doing online.  Many assignments are focused around original thoughts or work, when really does that even exist anymore?

Brainstorming

Photo Credit: inertia_tw via Compfight cc
This brings me to my last point that I wanted to address and that is the idea of “collective intelligence.”  Interacting on the web in this fashion is really the equivalent of group work on steroids.  The skills involved in contributing and connecting are really what we would have considered the higher levels of thinking and collaborating that is now more of an expectation than it was in the past.  We want our students to not just be bystanders to what they are seeing, but to actually and actively become involved in the collective understanding being developed.

Twitter…the great equalizer?

In preparation for this week’s class we were asked to give some thought the following questions:

“Given public, unstable nature of our digital identities, Palfrey and Gasser (2008) note that our identities are now shaped in large part by “intentional digital contributions” such as blogs, YouTube videos, or social networking profiles (pg.23).  However, due to gaps in technology access, inequalities arise around who can make such positive contributions; those without access are often less able to control their digital footprints through intentional contributions and therefore rely on what others say about them online. This becomes increasingly problematic as society becomes more and more critical of digital footprints. Who gets to control their own identity?  How does our society’s increased focus on the need for a positive digital identity contribute to the digital divide and to social inequality?  How do we move away from digital identity as the notion of a permanent record and move towards cultivating a culture of forgiveness?

I wanted to find an article that could make some connections to digital citizenship as well as Twitter, both topic pertinent to my major digital project.  The article that I will be summarizing is “Tweet Up? Examining Twitter’s Impact on Social Capital and Digital Citizenship in Higher Education by Danielle Morgan Acosta. This article draws in all of those aspects as well helps to shed some insight into the questions posed for the week.

Acosta argues that “Twitter is quite possibly one of the most accessible venues of communication currently available.” (pg 10)  In fact in the United States alone Twitter has over 17 million registered users.  We all know that Twitter is popular and I would even venture to say that we could guess the age group of the majority of those users.  Generally speaking it is what we have come to call “Generation Y” the 18-35 year olds. Many of which are using Twitter on a daily basis to send and receive information to friends, complete strangers or even connect with interest based groups or communities to share ideas.   For my major digital project we are using Twitter to explore the idea of citizenship and share some of the ways that we can contribute, even though my students are too young to vote. Having used Twitter personally for about 2 years now, I realize that it is quick and accessible way to make my voice heard, whether it is connecting over ideas around education or tweeting a local radio station.  Twitter gives its users a voice and access like never before to the people we want to hear our message.  I have used it in my classroom as well as personally to try and make connections with others in a forum that previously would have been less accessible.

Photo Credit: bi0xid via Compfight cc

Interestingly, Acosta shares a study which found that historically marginalized groups in the U.S. such as women, black and Latinos, us social media and particularly Twitter, at higher levels than their male or white counterparts.  She concluded that new technology such as Twitter are allowing these populations to find a voice and they are taking advantage of the opportunity to connect.  Some of the factors that have contributed to the increase of use, center on the idea of accessibility.  Twitter is easily accessible because it doesn’t really require a computer to participate.  More complicated social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace are more difficult to fully manage from your mobile device, Twitter is easily used.  “Twitter allows users to connect to anyone or anything regardless of location, socioeconomic status, or other typical barriers.  …users choose whom to follow, ultimately creating new structures of information sources and communities for themselves.” (pg 11)  Twitter is more about sharing and contributing to a message; rather than creating a space for one’s self.

Photo Credit: aquopshilton via Compfight cc

The article also discusses that participation on Twitter could help participants gain social capital by helping to expand social networks, bringing more historically marginalized groups into the conversation. (pg 12)  Acosta even suggests that Twitter could potentially serve to combat digital inequality by providing digital capital to rural communities, allowing for connections, networking, and learning, which could create social capital. (pg 12)  In my digital project, as a rural school, we have already made some connections to other city schools as well have followers that we never would have connected with, until we put our ideas out there.

Also in the article it discusses teaching students, in this case, university students about the potential for connections but also a need to educate Twitter users on the digital presence and persona judged through tweets and other forms of digital communication.   Acosta mentions Ribble’s Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship outlining ultimately that digital citizenship is “how to act and participate in digital technology.”   I would argue that there is a need for this education long before students reach post-secondary education.  Reflecting back to the questions for a moment, if we want students to be aware of their digital footprints and the lasting effect those can have we have to educate them sooner rather than later.  For many, waiting to post-secondary or even high school might result in damage already irreversible.  In some cases a digital identity is formed for kids today before they really have any control over it themselves.

Photo Credit: sean dreilinger via Compfight cc

I think this is especially important considering the author said that many of the users of Twitter might not have as much experience with other social media formats.  The author points out that access to Twitter is prevalent, but education and instruction on it is not.  If we want students to be successful and benefit by gaining social capital, we have to help them realize the potential.   As educators we know that social media participation is happening, but have to start to think about how to use it better to our advantage.  Acosta mentions a professor in Texas who uses Twitter for class discussions, finding that students who may not regularly participate in class engaged via Twitter.  (pg 16)

The article did make me reflect on one aspect of my digital project that I think I need to improve.  I don’t think that I’m really giving enough attention to the aspect of “conversation” in Twitter.  I think my project needs to incorporate more elements of student engaging with what others are posting to bring more of a “conversation” element rather than just a “posting” feel.  Acosta points out that students who are participating using Twitter feel a greater sense of belonging, but without having students engage with what others are posting, I’m really missing an important element to the conversation.

In conclusion I felt I like the article really gave me some things to reflect on, but also helped me to realize that there is a great deal of potential still to be gained through the use of social media sites like Twitter in the classroom.  Students today have more access than ever before, but there is still much to be done to help them to realize some of the possibilities and connections for even greater success.

Acosta, D. M. (2014). Tweet up? Examining twitter’s impact on social capital and digital citizenship in higher education. About Campus, 18(6), 10-17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1651853286?accountid=13480

One thing leads to another…

This week we were asked to spend some time exploring the idea of “Shaming” as it pertains to social media and our digital identities.  I found as I waded through the content I was pulled in a few different directions.

Photo Credit: TEDxUIUC via Compfight cc

First, I tackled Sherry Turkle’s article “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk” and her views on meaningful communication and conversation.  I could relate to what she was saying when she talked about how we are never fully immersed in conversation any longer because we are always “giving” our attention elsewhere, mostly to our devices.  Often I have sat with a group of friends that I have chosen to go out with and spend time with, only to find all of us at several points ignoring each other but all fully engrossed with what we had on our phones.  She made me question the level of conversation that we have on those meetings.  I do feel that it has declined somewhat, but at the same time, is it all that different than being in a pub and watching a random sporting event that might be on the TV’s?  I think that we do have the ability to focus in the on conversation when the need arises.  I would like to believe that if a friend that I was socializing with had a need for deeper conversation that it would be only a matter of tuning in to what they would have to say.  I believe that we do have the ability to connect, we just sometimes can be distracted.  I think that Turkle does have a point but her point only scratches the surface of the issue.

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon via Compfight cc

I then jumped into the Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship.  Recently I attended the Saskatchewan Middle Years Conference in Saskatoon where several of the presentations were regarding our role as educators and digital literacies in the classroom.   It seemed to be a common theme there as well.  In reflection of my own practice, I think that as an educator I spend a great deal of time worrying about teaching students themes more from the “Protect Yourself/Others” category and not enough time giving a more attention to the other elements.  I think that partially I feel that is my responsibility to teach about the “dangers” that exist.  This lended itself nicely into the next reading of the Saskatchewan Action Plan to address Cyberbullying to help implement Digital Literacies into the classroom.

Photo Credit: herwordskill via Compfight cc

Jason Ohler’s article “Character Education in the Digital Age”  talked about the students living “two lives,” their online digital self and the self that they present inside of school.  The discussion reminded me of a sort of parallel example of when sexual health education was really being introduced in schools and at a younger age to students.  The “old” belief being that was a family matter, because that was their parents job to teach them or they would learn what they needed to from the world around them, it wasn’t the schools job to teacher about safe sexual practices, because it was something that effected their lives outside of school.  Listening to those arguments now and then applying the same arguments to students digital lives, outside of school, seems somewhat silly.  Our students are not leading two separate lives and the sooner we realize that education has to address their reality, what we try to teach them has more relevance and a greater impact on what they learn.

Perhaps the most thoughtful reflection from the week came from watching both the Monica Lewinsky and Jon Ronson pieces.  I think those pieces had the greatest impact because I was already thinking about how important our role is as educators to help students make good choices both in the “real lives” as well as the life they lead digitally.  I can remember when the Monica Lewinsky story broke and the frenzy the world was in to know more about her and the story.  The media cared very little for her as a person except for how the story could be expanded and explored from every possible angle.  Sadly, I remember believing the picture that the media painted of her, the horrible, disgusting, smear campaign that was her live during the heat of when the story broke to the years that followed.  I can’t image the emotional and physical strain that she would feel as an person, but also that her family and friends would feel.  I also reflect with a guilty conscience how I watched with interest as this woman’s life was town apart in the media.  Looking back now I would like to think that as a society and as a consumer of media we have gotten better or more moderate with our consumption but I’m not sure that is really true.  I think that we have more ways to consume, but we also have more ways to voice our side or stand up for theirs.  We have the potential to be more positive and supportive than in the past.  I guess this ties back to the importance of all Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship.  I think as consumers of media we know that the voices are often negative surrounding stories like this that break, but with the new power we have there is potential for us to have a bigger voice in our support for people when they do become the center of what we consider “public shaming”.  I think it is important for us to send a positive message to students in how we teach them to exist online, reflects the kind of people they want to be.  “Bullying” someone in person is no different that bullying someone online, even if that person is a stranger.  Online our lives become connected in ways not physically possible, but a person is a person regardless of ever meeting them face to face or not.  While we may never know the effect we have on a person as they read the comments left by us, we do know how we would feel reading what was posted.  We must always remember empathy and compassion, even for those who we may never actually know, because it is still a reflection of who we are as a person.

Getting some Exposure!!!

This week a few of my colleagues and myself attended the Saskatchewan Middle Years Conference in Saskatoon.  This year there was a presentation by Dave Burgess who is the author of “Teach Like a Pirate.”

This was a great opportunity to get some exposure for our hashtag #iam2yng2vote.  It was also a great place to do some Tweeting with fellow colleagues.  There were a few sessions that gave us the opportunity to share some of the things that we were doing in our classroom.  I brought up my major digital project.  I even when so far as to call it a shameless plug!  While we did get a lot of other classrooms following us (classroom Twitter account) @BESGr8  we did not get a lot of people contributing to the hashtag 😦 sadly.  I talked about contributing if you has a classroom were doing something regarding good citizenship behaviors or making a positive impact on our community and beyond.  I thought that because it was a middle years group, a lot of social studies content centers around these topics and really any contribution from someone outside of our school would be welcome.

Step into the Matrix!

Here is an update on my major digital project.  Today I created and handed out the major component to my project.  I have created a Twitter Matix for the students to complete on Twitter.  The primary focus of my project is for students to engage in aspects of what it means to be a good citizen and to share with the Twitter world that even though they are only middle- schoolers they can still engage in the responsibilities of a citizen.  On the matrix I wanted students to first of all build some Twitter knowledge and add to their feeds a wider range of topics that they could engage with throughout the process.  So I had them do different elements of posting and re-posting of news stories that pertain to rights and responsibilities all citizens have.  I also wanted there to be some aspects that got them out into the community.

That being said I wanted to take some time and review with them from our Digital Citizenship mini-unit that Eden and I taught the rules that we would ask them to follow to help set some guidelines for them to think of before they posted.  We also did a refresher of what a good digital citizen looks like in their posts and in the ways that they would respond and engage others in the class on Twitter.  We started with a review of the “Golden Rule” of participation online.

And then tried to hit a few of the specifics that they might run into while completing the matrix.

 

And lastly wanted to remind them of some of the ways that they could connect with us.

At the end of the class we were excited to see them start to explore a little more of the Twitter community and ensured that they were able/knew how to post and reply.

 

Getting Started with Digital Citizenship

Eden and I decided that the best way to jump into our project, while waiting for all of the permission slips to come back to get started planning and teaching our Digital Citizenship Unit in health.  As I reflect back on what we have been talking about a class, I don’t think that digital citizenship should be a separate unit, but it was a good starting point or introduction that we could use to reflect back on throughout the year.  Together Eden and I created 3 powerpoints to go through that would be helpful in teaching.

We wanted to get the students started thinking about what it means to be in the digital world today so I found this video just to get them thinking and generating some ideas about how we connect with the world.

 

In the first few lessons we wanted to spend some time talking about what is digital citizenship.  I was surprised at first that they didn’t really realize what we were talking about when we used the word “digital”, when we got into the examples of digital, they knew exactly what we were talking about. It was helpful that Eden was also teaching about “citizenship” in general during this time because we could use some of the examples of citizenship from social to draw from to extend to what digital citizenship could mean.

When then continued with a discussion around what are our rights and responsibilities as digital citizens.  It was interesting to me that when we talk about digital safety or responsibility a lot of the discussion seems to focus around “cyberbullying”.  I think that has been the majority of the teaching has taken place for our students around the idea of cyberbullying, like it is the only bad thing that could ever happen online.  We initiated a discussion around the idea of “bad posts” or negative comments.  They agreed, but commented that they hadn’t really seen too much of that.  I thought that was interesting, as I guess it depends on where they are spending their time online.  But when I brought up online gaming, many seemed to recognize that a lot of negative stuff gets said there.  We spent some time talking about if the things that they saw there were a reflection of what those people would say or do in real life.  Many thought not, but again it became a good talking point about how our digital identities and whether or not they were separate entities or the same.  Great thing to think about as we saw a lot of “lightbulbs” go on for kids and making that connection.

We then wanted to give them some examples of digital citizenship, so we included the following videos for them to make some connections to and generate more ideas for the next class.

 

Putting it all Together

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

 

Over the last few weeks we have been talking a lot about the idea of “digital natives” vs. “digital immigrants” or “digital residents” vs. “digital visitors”,  so in my research I wanted to spend sometime looking closer at this idea and the application it has to the classroom.  Using those identities as a search I came across the article “Shrek Meets Vygotsky:  Rethinking Adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools”, by Kathy A. Mills.  The bi-line caught my attention, it said, ” Not all adolescents today are “digital natives.”  Greater emphasis should be placed on expert scaffolding of these literacies in school settings in order to extend students’ repertoire of skills and genres.”  The article draws attention to the three main assumptions  about adolescent literacies of the 21st century. First, she identifies not all adolescents are “digital natives”, the article suggests that the term over simplifys and exaggerates generational and socioeconomic differences.  The author suggests instead that the generation considered “natives” have literacies, but they are not complete, or at least their focus is narrow.  She talks about a study completed by UK Children Go Online project, that is an ongoing, large scale population study of 9-19 year old’s using the internet.  Their conclusions suggest that student’s rarely questioned the authenticity of websites, and were not critical viewers.  Very few were ever taught how to judge the reliability of online information.  Also that participants use the internet to communicate with friends primarily but did not participate in civic, global or political activities online. I have found the same to be true.  Think that when we as educators first started to realize the potential of digital media in our classrooms it was very common for people to assume that the students would become the teacher in many of the applications of that technology.  However, we have come to realize that “yes” they might have more tech know-how, but they still need to be taught how to manage technology and view it with a critical eye.   “This means that teachers have a vital role to play in guiding youth practices for social, recreational and civic engagement.” (pg. 37)

(Photo Credit: serdar via Compfight cc)

Secondly the article discusses the variety of literacies that students practice both within school and outside of school.   Mills calls for the use of multimodal literacy practices that seem to be more engaging for the students because that is the literacy they are exposed to more often in the world. She uses the example of students finding engagement in what they were learning because it was either new and interesting to them or because it connected both their life-world and existing interests.  Vygotsky comes into the discussion when we talk about the “zone of proximal development” multimodal literacies, allow students to build on what they are familiar with to help make connections and deeper the understanding of more formal literacies.  “Teachers can incorporate students’ predilections while extending the range of multimodal literacy practices that are already familiar to youth” (pg. 39) In Barbara’s blog she talked about texting becoming the new language and how she struggles with teaching formal writing, while at the same time realizing that often in student’s everyday lives they won’t use first form more than the later.  I think the answer lies somewhere in the connection between the two forms of writing, both have a purpose and place in society.  Perhaps even using the form more common to the students to help build engagement in the pieces they are less familiar with.  For example, maybe rather than a character study, an assignment could be to create a Facebook account demonstrating the students understanding of the character.   //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
Mills would suggests that when we bring the outside world and the connections students are coming with from the outside world into the classroom we create an opportunity for students to scaffold the multimodal literacies in the school setting.  “Vygotsky indicated that the most effective learning occurs when practice and instruction take place concurrently, with a reduced level of scaffolding as independent learning is demonstrated” (pg.43)  The article concludes with the idea that even though adolescents are discovering several multimodal literacy practices through informal networks, they still need to be reinforced and in some cases reintroduced for students to recognize their full potential.