ETL 523 – A Novel Idea

Assessment Item 3 – Part B, Critical Reflection Blog Post

3rd June 2020karla_oAssignments / Digital Citizenship / ETL 523Leave a comment

During this course, the learning I have undertaken about the digital learning environment has helped to solidify concepts that I learnt earlier in my Masters as well as reassure me that much of the thinking and processes that I have been attempting to use to develop and implement better virtual environments within my school, has been underpinned by some of the academic thinking and practical processes suggested throughout this course.

A digital learning environment has a distinct variation between the expectations, pedagogy and tools used to that of the face-to-face classroom. Now, more than ever, due to the recent online learning phase, the validity, relevance and effectiveness of these environments has been pulled into focus. In particular, the learning and instruction differences that these environments can offer. (Veletsianos, 2015, pg 243). The outcomes of the digital learning environment in the Collaboration Age (Richardson, 2008, para 4) are two-fold: not only do they teach students skills in the specific subjects they are learning but also that of digital and global citizenship. There is a fluidity to the classroom walls in which students can reach beyond the classroom to the more than one billion people online to “mine their wisdom and experiences” (Richardson, 2008, para 5). To then read, reply, create and publish work in response to the questions they are attempting to answer opens a world of possibility for curriculum development.

Students need to be explicitly taught these skills but there is often a lack of clarity around who is responsible for this. There is also varying opinion on what skills need to be taught as well as limits on time and the crowded syllabus from which teachers are accountable. Rheingold (2010, para 3) identifies several skills relating to social media that he believes should be taught – attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, critical consumption. In Hollandsworth, Donovan and Welch’s (2017, para 14) most recent research it was suggested that there is a decreasing awareness of digital citizenship amongst parents and students despite a significant increase in the use of technology on a daily basis. The evidence of their findings indicating that these skills need to be embedded within the delivery of content.

The challenge then is how to foster collective efficacy that utilises all staff, not just specialised teaching staff like a Teacher Librarian or Head of IT. Assignment 3 made me consider this more carefully. Many teachers are not actively engaged in digital learning environments or professional learning networks themselves which makes this particularly difficult when the investment is not apparent and when they have misconceptions as to what digital citizenship is (Sackson, 2015, para 2-3).

I believe the Teacher Librarian can play a pertinent role as an information leader in helping to drive discussion within a school to evaluate how digital learning environments are being used and how they can be pushed to extend students beyond digital citizenship capabilities and move them into the realm of the global digital leader. This is a long-term goal for my school. One that I need to ensure is carefully executed once a good practice surrounding the foundations of digital citizenship are embedded in the school culture. Work would be needed to develop policies and guidelines around privacy and safety. There would need to be discussion around having a shared vision that ensures a sustained focus on curriculum but that also prepares students to have an attitude to learning that encourages user responsibility. (Lindsay, 2014).

In so doing, this course has made me aware that in considering and building digital learning environments, it is not only possible to build technological capacity in students and staff but information fluency through a personalised learning environment.

612 words.

References

Altman, G. (2016). Woman Face Thoughts. [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/photos/woman-face-thoughts-media-head-1446557/

Hollandsworth, R., Donovan, J. & Welch, M. (2017). Digital Citizenship: You Can’t Go Home Again. TechTrends, 61, 524–530. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1007/s11528-017-0190-4

Johnson, G. ( 2018). Social Media. [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/vectors/social-media-connections-networking-3846597/

Lindsay, J. (2014). (SlideShare | 1 of 54 slides) http://www.slideshare.net/julielindsay/digital-citizenship-a-global-perspective-reduced-size-32020944

Osorio, P. (2018). Flashback Transport Rear-View Mirror. [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/photos/flashback-transport-rear-view-mirror-3216836/

Rheingold, H. (2010). Attention, and Other 21^st-Century Social Media Literacies. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/10/attention-and-other-21stcentury-social-media-literacies

Richardson, W. (2008). World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/collaboration-age-technology-will-richardson#

Sackson, E. (2015). Can You Teach Digital Citizenship, If You Are Not an Active Digital Citizen Yourself?. Retrieved from https://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/can-you-teach-digital-citizenship-if-you-are-not-an-active-digital-citizen-yourself/

Veletsianos, G. (2016). Digital Learning Environments. N Rushby & D. W. Surry (Eds). In The Wiley Handbook of Learning Technology, First Edition. Pg. 242-260. Retrieved from 10.1002/9781118736494

ETL 523 – Assessment Item 2 – Part C – Reflective Blog Post

24th April 2020karla_oAssignments / Digital Citizenship / ETL 523 / Reflections / UncategorizedLeave a comment

The collaborative online learning environment created by myself, Judy and Christy I feel, overall, was successful.

Our process began with the initial teething problems: working from two different Google Docs – one that Christy had already done some work on that she shared with us via email and another one that Judy had started. The email trail proved challenging for myself and Christy so I suggested moving across to Microsoft Teams. The advantage of Teams was that all our messages were streamed on one screen and you could see replies to various threads.

The newest piece of software that I was unfamiliar with was Zoom. It timed out well however, as the move to online learning happened around the time we started collaboration and I had heard that this was a good tool to use as an alternate to Adobe Connect which I was more familiar with.

I found the online meetings most helpful. This would be a “norm” for collaborative learning that I believe should be present in a digital learning environment. Locke (2007) talks about the various spaces that are user-centred and have various functions and behaviours that are present in that space such as “group” and “participation” spaces.

In the case of our group project, it provided an opportunity to get to know each other personally and to discuss the ideas we had all had individually about how we wanted to approach the project. It was an opportunity to ask questions and get clarification on understanding which I felt was important if we wanted to create a cohesive module. This was particularly important as at one key point in the process there were differences in understanding as to who our audience would be and how evaluation using the Quality Teaching Framework was going to be embedded into the modules. To combat this Christy adapted the template that Julie had provided for us as a Google doc to help get clarification and streamline what each of us was doing which I felt was a good strategy.

In terms of the school environment, online meetings would be vital in building relationships to ensure that students can feel as though they can be open and learn from one another as “co-learners” safely and responsibly (Rheingold, 2016, para 1). This is fundamental in a face to face context so developing those parameters online would also be important.

Building the online collaborative learning into a school environment would also need to be collectively designed by the school community – executive, teachers, students and community to ensure there is some consistency across the digital learning environments, a fluidity between formal and informal learning spaces and enough room for personalisation both for the teacher and student.

Individuals are always going to have a preference as to what they like to use in terms of digital tools and the ways in which they prefer to collaborate (just like learning styles) so it may be difficult to make everyone happy all of the time. As evidenced by our recent move to online learning, the diversity of tools and the variety of styles we have used should, hopefully, in the long term, make our students (and teachers) more versatile in their online collaborations and therefore better able to learn from each other within a digital world as long as collaborative discussion is embedded within this practice.

References

Locke, M. (2007, August 10). Six spaces of social media. http://test.org.uk/2007/08/10/six-spaces-of-social-media/

Rheingold, H. (2016, December 13). Practicing the principles of connected learning. http://educatorinnovator.org/practicing-the-principles-of-connected-learning/

ETL 523 – Assessment Item 2 Part B – Digital Artefact

22nd April 202022nd April 2020karla_oAssignments / Digital Citizenship / ETL 523 / Referencing and Research Skills / UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is the digital artefact I made on referencing for senior students. I used Adobe Spark, H5p and Wordle. I also sourced my images from attribution free sites such as Pexels and Flickr.