The web guide will support 21st-century educators to actively engage and foster digital citizenship practices in their Digital Learning Environments (DLE). The focus of the interactive web guide is to increase the awareness of Ontario educators in the elementary panel of recommended best practices for digital citizenship. Educators who actively participate on social media platforms and utilize digital resources will have the awareness and information to embed rich digital citizenship ideals into their practice. Relevant digital citizenship concepts are contingent on the tools and platforms that comprise the educator’s DLE. In order to develop students as responsible digital citizens, educators must know digital citizenship best practices to create, communicate and collaborate. This can be achieved through effective, ethical and safe learning and teaching activities in their DLE (Richardson, 2008). Best practices lay the foundation for responsible educator engagement with digital tools and Web 2.0. Web 2. 0 moves beyond the initial internet where the content was posted and read by users, Web 2.0 allows users to actively engage and participate in content creation (Downes & Bishop, 2012).
Alberta’s “Framework for Student Learning” (Alberta Education, 2011, p. 2) Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/resources21CL/About21stCentury/21CL_21stCenturyCompetencies.pdf
The blog and accompanying video artifact outline criteria for educators’ consideration as they develop and manage their DLE to teach and learn in Ontario schools. 21st Century Competencies (2016, pg. 18) states that “digital citizenship is emerging as a local priority among Ontario school boards as a result of a recent emphasis on technology-enabled transformative pedagogy through 21st Century Innovation Research initiative”. The web guide connects the current expectations and recommendations from the Ontario College of Teachers, Ontario Ministry of Education and global priorities of digital citizenship practices to foster 21st-century learning and teaching. Understanding the expectations outlined in governing documents and publications for Ontario educators will support an intentional approach to digital citizenship practices.
Digital artfact created by Sarah Clowes for ETL 523 Assessment 1 Part B