March 2020 – Teachers Who Know Me

Before I fully delve into the ETL523 Digital Citizenship content, I need to briefly determine what I think digital citizenship is, in terms of being an educator of (young) children.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citizenship — Merriam-Webster Definition of Citizenship (2020)

Digital citizenship is primarily an add on to citizenship. We must behave in a civilised manner in life, both face to face (citizenship) and online/electronically (digital citizenship). If at first students have no concept of citizenship

– that is, a communal bond and respect for living and working harmoniously together for the greater good –

then they will similarly have no concept of digital citizenship (living and working harmoniously together for the greater good electronically).

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), citizenship/ethics should be integral to every aspect of our 2020 teaching day. We must help students regulate through consistent SEL, relate to them via whole school programs like PB4L, so that we may reason / rationalise with them with lessons on citizenship and ethics (these being Dr Bruce Perry’s 3 R’s as provided by Beacon House, 2020).

Furthermore, I would add that as teachers our rationalisations / lessons must all be able to be reflected upon and evaluated and revised continually using some form of collegial quality teaching standards, such as the Quality Teaching Framework (QTF)…perhaps this could be my contribution to ETL523, to link Digital Learning Environments to the QTF…

The below notes are from reading ETL523 Module 1 ‘What is digital citizenship’:

Digital citizenship therefore, is not just about keeping students safe online, or giving students the skills or devices to access technology. It is helping students become productive members of an digital (learning) environment…digital citizens of a globally digital social society. This is supported by the video by ISTE, (2018) Rethinking digital citizenship.

Furthermore, as detailed by Greenhow (2010), Ribble, Bailey, and Ross (in their book, Digital Citizenship in Schools, ISTE, 2007), consider the 9 elements of digital citizenship to be: digital etiquette, digital communication, digital access, digital literacy, digital commerce, digital law, digital rights and responsibilities, digital health and wellness, and digital security.

Digital citizenship requires technical, individual, social, cultural and global awareness, which must be considered by teachers in the practical terms of students’ understanding the concepts of: safety, privacy, copyright, fair use and legal compliance, etiquette and respect, habits of learning (responsible, reliable management of online activity), literacy and fluency. This is best demonstrated by the Enlightened digital citizenship model of Davis & Lindsay (2012):

Davis, V. Lindsay J. (2012). Enlightened Digital Citizenship Model. Retrieved from Module 1

References

Beacon House, (2020). Dr Bruce Perry’s 3 R’s. Retrieved from https://beaconhouse.org.uk/resources/

Greenhow, C. (2010). New concept of citizenship for the digital age. Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(6), 24-25.

ISTE. (2018, October 11). Rethinking digital citizenship. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/iwKTYHBG5kk.

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2012). Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: Move to global collaboration one step at a time. Allyn and Bacon. Chapter 5: Citizenship. (available on CSU DOMS as a downloadable PDF)

Merriam-Webster, (2020). Definition of Citizenship. [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citizenship

A key aspect of both L3 and Accelerated Literacy pedagogies in the K-6 Australian classroom is providing ‘quality texts’ for a learning focus as a whole class. No matter what pedagogy is the flavour of the month in a given educational setting, utilising quality texts is the key to unlocking student potential.

In answering the question, ‘what makes a quality text?’ we must keep in mind that it is closely related to ‘what makes a good writer?’ In many classrooms over the last 5 years, I’ve witnessed teacher and administrator despair at the low quality of writing being produced by students…and yet the instructional texts being chosen by schools or educators have most recently been phonics based, ‘guided readers’ or ‘decodable’ readers / texts (see my previous post regarding my feelings about texts used to teach children how to read).

What makes a quality text? Well, I present the idea that: if you give children boring, out of context, un-relatable, poor quality texts in which to learn to read, you will get boring, out of context, un-relatable poor quality writing produced by students.

So, what makes a quality text / quality writer? See the quality book: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore (2012) by W.E. Joyce. (This was also adapted as an award winning short film (Joyce, 2011). This book is something I try to show every class that I teach while being a casual teacher (and otherwise). I show the movie, then I ask the students, depending on time, to explain why some books fly and some do not – ergo, what makes a quality text. They explain: its a book that is funny, exciting, interesting, takes them places they’ve never thought of or been to before, or that creates a picture inside their heads. In one class, they were using the 7 Steps of Writing strategies and could see the link to quality texts and quality writing clearly, answering ‘sizzling starts,’ etc.

Its not hard to help students make the link from quality reading to quality writing…we just have to work on getting rid of those boring books being used exclusively by educators and administrators…

(ETL402 was dropped in the middle of this post due to family circumstances)

Month: March 2020

What is Digital Citizenship?

The below notes are from reading ETL523 Module 1 ‘What is digital citizenship’:

ETL402 Module 1C: What is a quality text?