Category Archives: ETL523 – Digital Citizenship in Schools

ETL523 Reflective Post: Digital citizenship in schools is not just a priority it is a necessity.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Digital citizenship is the ability to use technology to engage confidently and ethically when participating in an online environment. It entails more than having digital literacy skills, to include how you use those skills when collaborating, curating and creating.  Mike Ribble’s elements of digital citizenship grouped under the maxims of: Be Safe; Be Savvy; Be Social struck a chord with me highlighting how schools should be educating students to be the best version of themselves online (Ribble, 7 June 2018). The whole idea of digital citizenship is how to act in the global digital environment and yet we are holding the world at bay, limiting global collaboration, ignoring students’ digital learning environment outside the school grounds and expecting them to become digital citizens without letting them leave the confines of the school digital learning environment.

Schools are missing the mark when preparing students with the skills to use their digital environment effectively by persisting to ignore the world they currently exist in. Schools have taken a reactant approach to how students use technology instead of being proactive.  You can see this in the policies and agreements many schools have in place, with the focus being on fear and negativity (Forde & Stockley, 2009). We have focussed on everything you should not do online, through our ‘Acceptable Use Policies’. We focus on referencing in assignments to avoid plagiarism and being ‘caught’ by programs such as Turnitin, when many teachers are failing to cite their own sources in day to day lessons. We restrict access to the many programs and platforms our students are currently living their digital lives on, except when we are scaring them with the ramification of the negative impacts of their involvement.

In effect, we are not educating students how to be lifelong learners, we are teaching them how to get through the education system. This has led to a dual mentality of how to act at school and how to act at home. This divide is a figment of our imagination, as our actions physically and virtually cross boundaries, as many of our politicians recently discovered. Through understanding that all our actions are linked, whether it is for a school assignment or posting a comment on Facebook we show digital citizenship.

How can we prepare students for a digital world if we do not engage them in it? I first made this observation in week one of this course and it continues to be a source of my frustration. We are living in a technical world that enables us to communicate and collaborate across the globe. What better way is there of teaching students to be global digital citizens than affording them the opportunities to do so through blogging, curating, and collaborating with other global students on projects that will provide authentic learning opportunities to deepen their understanding. Why aren’t our language classes setting up Skype partners across the globe? Why can’t our social action groups virtually collaborate with other schools to empower social change? We should be encouraging active participation in this fertile environment, demonstrating and providing opportunities to develop digital citizenship skills.

Prior to doing this subject I thought I was an active digital citizen. In hindsight, I was not fully participating or engaging. I was curating through Twitter and Diigo, but not sharing my insights. I was constantly on the search for digital artifacts that I could use; but would never dream of making one myself. I called myself a team player and collaborator; but had never used technology to collaborate past my school grounds. This subject has opened my eyes to the power afforded to me by technology as a GLOBAL digital citizen. Nonparticipation is not the answer. I need to be the active digital citizen that I want my students and children to be.

 

 

Forde, L., & Stockley, R. (2009). Techno nightmare: Legal issues for teachers and schools. Teacher: The National Education Magazine, June/July, 48-51. Retrieved from Informit

Ribble, M. (7 June 2018). The top 3 elements of student digital citizenship. EdTech.

 

Curation not Hoarding

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Ask a teenage student to show you their desktop, or for that matter, ask a teacher. Without doubt in most cases you will see an assortment of files, links and short cuts dumped on their home screens. Welcome to the age of digital hoarding. The art of curation is a necessity for everybody in a digital learning environment and teacher librarians are best placed to instructional lead their institutions in best practice (Valenza, 2012).

Content curation has always happened at schools, but the digital information overload and the rate it is happening at is leaving some washed in its wake. We are both consuming and producing information at a phenomenal rate, and no more so than in an educational setting, where emails and communications fly.  Think of the information we collect – emails, documents, music, videos, photos. How can students cope with this influx unless we teach them the valuable skills of curation? Curation is the art of not only collecting but organising and adding value to those resources (Wheeler & Gerver, 2015).

When I picture well curated resources, strangely I think of Marie Kondo and her method of decluttering spaces called KonMari (Kondo, 2015). The KonMari method gets its’ followers to work out what you want to keep first – Does it bring you joy?  The second step is to organise by grouping. Finally, it is the storing and labelling.

Curation takes a very similar path. Before we can teach both students and teachers how to curate, we need to teach them how to declutter and decide what is worth keeping or curating.  A good curator will also ask key questions – do I need it? And is it worth it? Only the individual curator can answer the first question, need is very subjective.  The second question of ‘worth’ is one of evaluating validity. The CRAP method is a popular choice for students’ evaluation of sources, possibly due to its crass mnemonic.

C – currency

R – reliability

A – Authority

P – Point of view or purpose.

(Charles Sturt University Library, 2019)

Once a resource has been deemed worthy of collection it is time to organise it.  Where will you store it? Is it worth sharing? How will you label it – so you can find it easily when needed or so it has relevance to those you share it with? This is where folders, playlists, and tagging come into their own.  By labelling resources with key terms that will group it with other similar resources we improve our workflow.  Today’s digital affordance allows us to group, sort and store in multiple places for multiple uses, maximising our curated resource exposure. Through adding tags and grouping items we are adding value to the resource, ensuring its usefulness.

There are two types of curation:

  1. Personal Curation – finding, organising and labelling resources for your personal use. Some examples are:
    • Storing of personal files
    • Cataloguing of emails
    • Using bookmarks on web browser with folders
    • Signing into Youtube and creating private playlists or channels
    • Spotify/Music Online – creating playlists.
    • Images into albums on your devices.
  2. Collective Curation – The ability to curate resources together and comment on others’ curations. Some examples are:
    • Website Curation tools like Diigo, Pinterest, Pearltrees, Elib…
    • Openly sharing resources through networks and social media.

Collective curation builds collaboration and enhances communication.  Teaching students the ability to curate, and then engaging them in projects which utilise collective curation has the potential to deepen learning and create higher order thinking (Gonzalez, April 15, 2017). Mobile Digital Curation allows for learning to happen anywhere, anytime and breaks the walls of the classroom. Mobile devices have opened our ability to find, select, organise, create and share resources.

Students need the digital literacy skills that will enable them to do this well, and in the process curate themselves a positive digital footprint.

 

Charles Sturt University Library (Producer). (2016). How to evaluate information. [Online Video] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/hp5xasNuHL8

Gonzalez, J. (April 15, 2017). To boost higher-order thinking.  Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/curation/

Kondo, M. (2015). The life-changing magic of tidying. London: Ebury Publishing.

Valenza, J. (2012). Curation! (Vol. 29).

Wheeler, S., & Gerver, R. (2015). Learning with ‘e’s : Educational theory and practice in the digital age. In. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/detail.action?docID=1918927

 

 

The Digital Divide in Our Schools

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According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics  Australia is more connected to the internet than ever before with households having multiple devices that connect to the internet (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 28th Mar 2018).  We are ranked 15th out of the top 100 nations when it comes to the Inclusive Internet Index commissioned by Facebook and compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit, which ranks countries in four categories four categories of inclusion: Accessibility, Affordability, Relevance and Readiness (The Economist Group, 2019). However, despite these high global and national statistics, rankings and there is still a digital divide occurring in this country.

Some groups within our country are not as included in our digital world, to the point of being excluded. The digital inclusion index tracks how included Australian are digitally, and has found that income, education levels, geography of being socioeconomically disadvantaged has significant effects (Thomas, 2018). We are a nation of the haves and have nots. Some have fast internet access, others do not, some have the skills and ability to use technology effectively, while others struggle and are being left behind.

It is a school’s responsibility to ensure that education is provided equitably to all students. Access to internet, devices and ability vary amongst students within a school community. To remedy the digital divide that is occurring within school communities the school must be proactive in remedying such inequality.  Three ways our school does this is by:

  • Through providing access to free fast internet within school grounds and extended hours of operation, through the library, for those who do not have adequate access at home.
  • Ensuring that there is a standard of devices for students to use and access to devices for those students who do not have the equipment necessary for full digital inclusion
  • Engaging in digital literacy programs that build the skills and competencies need to be ‘digitally included’ in today’s digital learning environment.

 

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (28th Mar 2018). Household use of information technology, Australia. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8146.0

The Economist Group. (2019). The inclusive internet index. Retrieved from https://theinclusiveinternet.eiu.com/explore/countries/performance

Thomas, J. B., J. Wilson, CK. Cook, K. Louie, YM. Holcombe-James, I. Ewing, S. MacDonald, T. (2018). Measuring Australia’s digital divide: The Australian digital Inclusion Index 2018. doi:http://doi.org/10.25916/5b594e4475a00

 

21st Century Learning – keeping up with society

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The curriculum taught in schools can no longer be content driven in a society where there is rapid change occurring in all aspects of life.  Opportunities must be given to students to engage in authentic learning that is not based on static content, but is participatory and self-directed (Wheeler & Gerver, 2015). To do this, teachers need to engage in pedagogical practice that allows students to engage with content in ways that opens pathways for them to work collaboratively with both the teachers and other students. It is only through changing from teacher-led to self-directed learning that students will gain the competencies and skills required to succeed in the modern global society (Scott, Sept 2015).

Producing through interaction and creativity, rather than focusing on consuming builds active learners who are engaged and invested in their learning. Knowledge is deepened through allowing collaboration and critical thought processes involved in producing responses that allow for students to display creativity (Mills, February 19, 2019). As teachers, we must engage with our students, modelling best practise when it comes to using digital citizen skills.  Through exploring new forms of collaboration, communication and production, we not only expose our students to valuable skills and competencies that will take them into their future world, but we build our own capacities as 21st Century learners.

 

Mills, K. (February 19, 2019). Technology and learning in the classroom: six tips to get the balance right. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/technology-and-learning-in-the-classroom-six-tips-to-get-the-balance-right-111430

Scott, C. L. (Sept 2015). The futures of learning 1: Why must learning content and methods change in the 21st century? Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002348/234807E.pdf

Wheeler, S., & Gerver, R. (2015). Learning with ‘e’s: Educational theory and practice in the digital age. Retrieved from Proquest eBook Central

 

 

Digital Citizenship

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In the nine years since Christine Greenhow (2010) wrote her article “A New Concept of Citizenship for the Digital Age” Australia has a consensus on what it means to be a digital citizen, however schools’ approach to teaching digital citizenship are still wanting.

The e-safety commissioner defines digital citizenship as:

“a person with the skills and knowledge to effectively use digital technologies to participate in society, communicate with others and create and consume digital content”(Australian Government Office of the eSafety Commisioner).

This definition allows for the continual development of digital technologies to occur with the principles of citizenship remaining intact.  Christine Greenhow could not have predicted the rise of the app store, cloud computing, social networks (such as snapchat, Instagram, what’s app) or the power of crowdsourcing for mobilised digital citizens.  For me an informed, publicly engaged digital citizen is cognisant of the power of their behaviour online and engages with their digital environment for their maximum benefit, rather than shrinking from the responsibility and burden of digital citizenship.

As a teacher in an Australian high school, I see our school digital learning environment and community, not reflecting the real-life digital environment that our students live in.  From the comfort of their personal spaces they collaborate, participate and personalise their digital environment, building networks and communities, yet often when they are at school, they are restricted to be the receiver of digital content. When they are engaged in producing content there is almost a fear from staff and students as to who will see it.  Is this not the opposite of effectively participating as a digital citizen?  Our school uses the Microsoft office programs and have effectively used Stream as a method of collating multimedia projects that students have compiled.  It frustrates me that it was deemed necessary for the student’s ability to comment to be turned off at an administrative level.  Our school, like many others, restricts access to social networking sites within the school grounds.  How can we expect students to develop digital citizenship skills if we do not promote networking within the school environment? As teachers, we should be modelling and instructing students in digital citizenship skills (Greenhow, 2010). To do this effectively, we need to create the participatory, collaborative environment that exists outside the school community, in house.

Australian Government Office of the eSafety Commisioner. Digital citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.esafety.gov.au/education-resources/classroom-resources/digital-citizenship

Greenhow, C. (2010). New Concept of Citizenship for the Digital Age. Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(6), 24-25.

Digital Learning Environment – My thoughts

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A digital learning environment (DLE) is not just the technology – hardware and software, used in a school, but the intangible attitudes and skills of all users within the ecosystem of the school community in their utilisation of technology.  In our school community, as with any environment the ‘buy in’ varies. Some teachers use the DLE to effectively engage their students in learning experiences that are participatory and personalised through using OneNote Class Notebooks, STILE and Moodle.  They work collaboratively in teams to organise the department learning experiences and content. Others use technology primarily as a production tool, or dissemination tool, ignoring the collaborative, participatory and personalisation possibilities that the DLE has to offer.

As educators, we need to encourage our students to develop the digital citizen skills that will enable them to engage effectively in this rapidly changing digital environment.  They need to have the skills required to be safe, savvy and social (Ribble, 2018). Providing opportunities for students to utilise these skills within their education practises will help guide them to becoming responsible global digital citizens.  Networking within their class, their school, their State, their Country and globally, students have the potential to deepen and broaden their education beyond the static four walls that was once the classroom.  Teachers should also be using their networks and communities to build their educational practise to reflect the national and global nature of education in the 21st Century.

 

Ribble, M. (2018). The top 3 elements of student digital citizenship. EdTech. Retrieved from: https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2018/06/top-3-elements-student-digital-citizenshipMy