Before this course began I wrote a blog post (McEwen, 23 February 2021) on why I chose this elective. I wanted to be stretched and challenged and become more knowledgeable and wise in my support of technology in the classroom (McEwen, 22 March 2021). I acknowledged that I can’t equip students with skills I do not have myself.

ETL523 has opened my eyes to terms and concepts like Digital Learning Environment (DLE) (McEwen, 5 March 2021) and a Personal Learning Network (McEwen, 27 March 2021) that I had never heard of although I realised I was engaging in without much thought. I had always wanted to learn to design a website (McEwen, 20 April 2021) and this class gave me the motivation needed to do it. With everything I have learned, there are two standout areas of growth for me: my understanding of digital citizenship (McEwen, 8 March 2021) in relation to supporting the digital learner (McEwen 28 April 2021) and the need for a school-wide plan for the DLE (McEwen, 3 May 2021).

Previous to this class, I thought of digital citizenship as a list of things to avoid doing so they don’t come back to haunt you later in life. How absolutely refreshing it was to discover that digital citizenship encompasses so much more than that. Heick defines digital citizenship as the “quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities” (2020). This is a shift of focus front the “don’ts” to the positive things that students can bring to the global table and focuses on encouraging, respecting and helping others through their work. As Anne Collier points out, this is really just focusing on being a good citizen, digital or not (Davis, 2017). Many in my school community (parents and teachers) still see computers as a scary place for children where they are constantly at risk. I look forward, in my new role as my school’s teacher librarian, to modelling this new digital citizenship, to come alongside teachers and help them re-think their student’s role when online and to use my section in the school newsletter to educate the school community. I hope to build towards having a parent education night where this concept can be further disseminated.

This class has helped me to see the need for an overarching plan for the development of my school’s DLE. I found it interesting in Discussion Thread 5.3 that many of my fellow ETL523 students saw having expressly taught digital citizenship classes as the solution to this need. Common Sense Media and similar organisations have a curriculum that is good for teaching digital citizenship, and I agree that these skills need to be expressly taught, but I think that using these resources to embed these concepts throughout the different digital technology activities taking place in the curriculum is a more effective way to teach this. It puts it in context and makes it relevant to the students. Our school has a dedicated Curriculum Leader who could outline a program of the skills needing to be taught/reviewed at each level and then look at how these could be integrated into the existing curriculum. This might involve some teacher professional development which could be handled in school during curriculum days, staff or section meetings. Once all teachers have a shared vision of how this looks a parent handout could be developed and an informational night could be held to share the vision with the community.

Common Sense Education. Common Sense Education | Digital Citizenship Curriculum & EdTech Reviews. (n.d.). https://www.commonsense.org/education/.

Davis, V. (2017, November 1). What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis.

Heick, T. (2020, September 8). The Definition Of Digital Citizenship: The Future Of Learning. TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/the-definition-of-digital-citzenship.