Digital Citizenship
How and When to Teach Digital Citizenship
After reading some of the research and articles from this week, I was led to an article that was written by a kindergarten teacher. This teacher expressed the how and why of teaching digital citizenship in her classroom. She explained the importance of teaching digital citizenship by connecting the importance of teaching students to not trust strangers. "With children spending time online at younger and younger ages, it's vital that we explicitly teach young children how to protect themselves online. Most young children get the "stranger danger" talk at school, so they know about how to handle strangers in their neighborhood and in face-to-face situations" (Hertz, 2017). She continues by listing and explaining places to begin when teaching students to be digital citizens, "First, the transfer of knowledge about how to handle strangers in real life to those in virtual environments is not automatic. It needs to be taught. Second, while most stranger danger programs teach that strangers are scary and mean and want to hurt or abduct children, this contradicts the way collaboration occurs between strangers online. Not all strangers are dangerous. Lastly, in real life students can walk or ran away from a potential threat. In an online environment, the danger is inside a student's home and hard to escape if they don't have the skills necessary for handling tough situations" (Hertz, 2017). I find that Hertz has listed a starting place for all digital citizen instruction at the primary school level. I believe that digital citizenship should be taught starting in Kindergarten. Students could benefit from hearing this message several times. I believe that each school year should begin with explicit instruction and real-life examples/comparisons between learning the dangers of strangers face to face and online. Followed by explicit instruction and examples that not all strangers online are going to appear scary or mean online. Throughout the year I will continue to provide students with instruction and real life examples of how to escape potential threats or danger online. I will provide students with both success and unsuccessful stories. I will use the unsuccessful stories to brainstorms possible solutions with students. I loved Vicki Davis's ideas of putting students in the teaching position, "Turn students into teachers: You can have students create tutorials or presentation exposing common scams and how people can protect themselves. By dissecting cons and scams, students become more vigilant themselves. I encourage them to share how a person could detect that something is a scam or con" (2017). By asking students to provide a more desirable outcome of unsuccessful situations I am using Davis's advice and encouraging students to be more vigilant through the experience.
The Importance of Students, Teachers and Administration
Understanding and Practicing Digital Citizenship
I believe that anything we ask our students to do we must be willing to do ourselves. As humans we love to see examples of success before trying something new ourselves. We really desire to see someone else "try it, before we buy it". I believe that this mentality would still stand in the world of digital citizenship. Administration is the first that must understand the importance of understanding and practicing digital citizenship. Administrators must serve as good digital citizenship role models while promoting a lifestyle of digital citizenship. To convience Administration I would share the article The Importance of Internet Safety by Heather Wolpert-Gawron. She brings ups several interesting, legal reasons for schools to be involved in digital citizenship. "Our schools must be permitted to better mimic the challenges that exist outside its wall in order to better help prepare our students for those decisions" (Wolpert-Gowron, 2012). Wolpert-Gowren's article appeals to the various concerns of administrators such as legality, student safety, etc.
Once administration is convinced of the importance teachers must now see the importance of understanding and practicing digital citizenship. There was one article this week that really showed me the importance as an educator.
When thinking about helping students understand the importance of digital citizenship, I think of convincing students that some of their favorite apps/games/social media, etc. could be dangerous. I then see lots of eye rolls and giggling. I can already imagine the difficulty of conveying the importance of digital citizenship to students. My students are already so connected. They all own a personal cellphone. Over half of my students have one or more social media profiles. They are already very deep into the digital world. For students to begin the understand the importance I believe I would need to implement some suggestions from Andrew Marcinek's article, Digital Citizenship: Developing a Culture of Trust and Transparency. Marcinek calls for school policies regarding technology usage to change to support students usage. "My observation about the need for a semantic shift, probably one of the biggest shifts requited, reflects how acceptable use policies are interpreted by students. Essentially, these policies read more like a legal document rather than a document that students can understand and carry out. Additionally, we need to shift the focus from "you shouldn't do that: to a sense of empowerment around technology. In short, schools should place a positive connotation around technology use" (Marcinek, 2014). Marcinek mentions a great place to begin with students. If students were a part of writing their own usage agreement they would have to review school legislation, district policies and current research. Through this process students would gain an understanding of the importance of digital citizenship.
Helping Parents Understand Digital Citizenship
Wolper-Gowron also provides great support the importance of parents understanding and practicing digital citizenship. "Schools must help empower parents to be the digital caretakers at home because we can only do so much during the school day. We must teach families simple tools to insist on, and have them extend the culture of cyber safety to the homes. Parents must work hand in hand with schools if our students are to function in this digital world" (Wolper-Gowron, 2012). Wolper-Gowron detailed a Parent-Tech institute that she held student families. I see great power in this type of gathering. This year in my own district we used Common Sense Media for instruction to our students. I think this would be a great resource to also share with parents at a Tech Night. Hopefully this would encourage students and parents to learn together and hold deep conversations regarding the importance of digital citizenship.
Dilemmas in Applying Research to the Needs of Students
After reviewing all of the research surrounding Digital Citizenship I still worry about a few potential dilemmas in applying the research to the needs of students. Right now my students come from very finically blessed families. My students often have the latests and greatest technology at home. I am worried about keeping up with these new devices. For example, my building uses Common Sense Media for digital citizenship instruction. When completing a lesson during the year the new iPhone was released. One of the lessons surrounded privacy on personal devices such as passwords. The new iPhone can only be unlocked by facial recognition according to my students. One of my students shared during the lesson that he just got the phone for his birthday and he can do whatever he wants on it without this parents knowing because they are unable to unlock the phone without him present. Is there a resource that is shared amongst teachers to aid and support each other with new changes like this? If not, this could become a major dilemma because some of the instructional resources will rapidly be out of date.
Cost of Technology for Future Implementation in the Classroom
I find this piece of the blog most difficult to write. I feel that the cost of technology for future digital citizenship implementation in the classroom is infinite. As I mentioned in my dilemmas comments, technology is changing so fast I believe that classroom will continue to be forced to invest for future implementation. This will be an ever changing piece of classroom just as the ever changing technology in our world. The sky is the limit of the cost for future implementation in the classroom.
Collaborative Technologies
Decision-Making Process
For me, the decision making process behind creating a lesson with collaborative technology was simple. I picked a collaborative technology that my students have some experience with and that is well support on students one-to-one devices. I selected Google+ to provide collaborative technology in my classroom. I selected Google+ for many reasons but, the first reason is my students are already familiar with G Suite. All students in my building work with G Suite in third grade. Students begin collaborating with Google Slides and Google docs while also completing Google Forms starting in third grade. When students come into my fourth grade classroom this steam of familiarity continues. Students use some form of G Suite every day. G Suite is the natural selection for most teachers in my building because our students are one to one with Chromebooks. Students experience minimal amounts of tech issues when using G Suite on their devices. Since students are familiar with G Suite and Google is well supported on our devices I selected Google+. I know that students will be familiar with the tools, have access to a Google Account already and have strong understanding of basic Google functions/troubleshooting.
Outside of these benefits, I also really enjoyed the options that Google+ provides. I loved the idea of a safe social media experience with Google+ Stream. I know this would be a high engagement tool for students but, a great resource to teach students how to collaborate online safely. There are many safety options that would allow me to block content that I wouldn't want students to view. To me, Google+Steam is teaching students to use social media but, with the training wheels on. Another tool that really persuaded me to select Google+ is Google+ Circles. I loved this tool because as I transition to blended learning in my classroom, I would like to use the station rotation blended model. This model asks for students to work in small group rotations. I could create Google+Circles for specific stations or groups of students. This would help keep student collaboration purposeful and easy to organize.
Dilemmas in Applying Research to Specific Student Needs
Even though I selected Google+ for a collaborative technology to use in my classroom, I acknowledge some dilemmas in applying the research surrounding collaborative technology to my specific student needs. Specifically, there is one digital challenge. Research supports a need for even the youngest students to engage in collaborative technology opportunities."As citizens of the world, students in today's classrooms seek global context for learning. Opportunities for networked and international collaborations are bringing both the world to the classrooms and classrooms to the world" (Williams, 2015). Google+ does have an age restriction. Google+ asks for all users to be 13 years of age. My fourth graders are still 9 and 10 years of age. There are some possible solutions to this dilemma. "There are ways to deal with this if you'd like to use Google+ with younger learners, including parents signing up for access, or simply using a single class account while at school" (Heick, 2012).
Another dilemma in applying research to specific student needs surrounds the collaborative learning physical space. Research provides various ideas for creating collaborative learning in the physical classroom space, most of these ideas support expensive technology tools. For example, a collaborative learning article provides this suggestion for creating a collaborative physical space, "an Apple TV added to a mounted flat-screen television lets you mirror devices during project sessions. Physical spaces can then be connected to virtual spaces through creativity and productivity apps" (Williams, 2015). I would love to be able to connect the physical environment of my classroom to the virtual environment in this way but, I am unable to afford that technology in my classroom. My classroom for next year doesn't even have a projector screen as it is becoming a Title 1 school. So, I find there to my some financial challenges with ideas that research suggests as best practices for creating this type of environment. However, there are other ideas supported in research that are far less expensive.
Cost of Technology
Sharing this blog through the length of an entire graduate course, I spent some time reflection on my previous entry. I found my previous response to a similar question very interesting. My former response to cost of digital citizenship technology was, the cost will be infinite. I find this to still be true in some aspects of integrating collaborative technology but, throughout this course, I have found this isn't always true. This course has shown me a vast variety of free collaborative technologies. The Google+ technology that I selected to use in my own lesson plan is completely free. There are now so many free options to integrate collaborative technology into the classroom there is no reason to not have some type implemented in the classroom. I was surprised at my own jump in knowledge between this blog post and my prior post. I am very fortunate for a new perspective and new tools to accept the challenge.
Ideas for Future Implementation
At this time, I am currently enrolled in the Blended Learning course. Within the course, I just learned about several projects that connected students with other classrooms all around the world. Professor Smokorowski shared several projects where she integrated collaborative technology with other classrooms all around the world. One project really stuck out to me. This project was the Exchanging Hope Project. This project allowed for her classroom of students to collaborate with a school in Africa. The school is Africa created art project for Mrs. S's library and Mrs. S's students raised money for the school in Africa. It sounded that both both classes learned so much about each other through collaborative technology. Students communicated with the tool Skype. I would love to implement Skype usage similar to Mrs.S's in my own classroom. I would like to find a classroom in our state and a classroom in another country to collaborate with on a project. I will create a project similar to Mrs. S's project where she identified the passions and needs of students and designed the project around both.
Collaborative Technology for Teachers
I found several types of collaborative technologies. I picked a few collaborative technologies that I could use inside my building and few that could connect me with teachers all over the world. The first technology is a collaboration tool that could be used within my own building known as Slack, "Picture a virtual chat room, open 24/7 on ongoing, where you can type instant messages, tag others, add hashtags, and save key comments you don't want to forget" (Maldonado, 2018). Another collaborative technology that I discovered through my research is WikiEducator, "because of their sharing, editing and discussion capabilities wikis are a great tool for sharing and editing a major effort, such as how your district plans to transition to Common Core of developing a new reading assessment strategy for your school" (WeAreTeachers, 2012). My favorite collaborative tool to use with other educators, that I use daily with teachers all over the world, is Twitter. I love to see photos and read articles from teachers from all content areas and districts. I find something everyday to read or download to use in my own classroom. This is my favorite collaborative technology because it allows me to connect on my own time with millions of people.
Ideas/Lessons From Other Teachers
Most of my ideas/lessons that I have stole from other teachers comes from Professor Smokorowski and her live session in my Blended Learning course. She shared so many projects that allowed her classroom to collaborate with each other and students/professionals from all over the world. Within this blog, under the "Ideas for Future Implementation" section, I described one of Mrs. S's projects that allowed her students to collaborate with other students in Africa. Another collaborative technology that I am going to use is part of Mrs. S's squiggle project. This project uses both a Weebly and Skype. I am looking forward to using both collaborative technologies and this project in my own classroom.
References
Serious Gaming
Decision-Making Process for Serious Gaming
My decision-making process in using serious gaming in my classroom surrounds practices that I am already using in my classroom. When I first read the research and readings from this week, I began picturing a group of students from my classroom this past year. This group of students struggled with engagement constantly which led to various academic challenges. Small instructional tasks often proved challenging. The type of students who were discussed in this week's research and Ted Talks who benefit from serious gaming in the classroom perfectly depicted the group of students in my classroom last year who struggled with engagement and academic performance. "Digital classroom games are especially helpful for students who struggle in school. In one recent study, nearly half of teachers surveyed reported gaming can significantly motivate low-performing students and improve their mastery of both academic content and skills such as critical thinking and communication" (Chen, 2016). So, after physically picturing past students who would benefit from gaming in the classroom, I was ready to decide on the type of serious gaming that I would like to use in my classroom. I decided to pursue simulation in the classroom.
I selected simulation as the type of serious gaming to use in the classroom for multiple reasons. The first reason that I selected simulation is due to the use of PBL's in the classroom already. This year I integrated several PBLs into my classroom. One of the largest PBLs that I implemented surrounded the causes of the American Revolution. The final project was to write a persuasive essay from one perspective of the American Revolution that detailed one of the causes leading to the Revolution. Within this PBL I would like for students to have more of a real life experience. I quickly Googled simulations for American Revolution and found several quality examples. I really enjoyed
PBS's Road to Revolution simulation game and
Mission 1 of Mission US. There were several examples of simulations that could really add quality learning experiences to the PBL. I believe I would pick two or three quality simulations to include throughout the PBL. Since the focus of PBLs are real world application and learning experiences, simulations would be the perfect addition. Another reason that I selected simulations as a serious gaming option in my classroom the option for collaboration. Simulations can often include multiple players at the same time. Even some of the American Revolution simulation examples that I quickly browsed allowed for multiplayer collaboration. Just at the research from this week stated, "Game playing encourages collaboration, peer validation, and a different kind of teamwork than is often found in traditional group projects. Teachers are able to prompt more introverted students to speak up, and to connect with students who are otherwise difficult to engage" (Chen, 2016). As I mentioned previously, the readings from this week have made me think of a specific group of my students from the prior year who struggled both academically and with engagement. A multiplayer simulation could have supported this group of students who struggled. I wish I would have been able to provide the option of simulations often.
Even though I related to the research about serious gaming this week, I found a few possible dilemmas in applying the research into my own classroom. In one of the articles from this week there was a section designated to "debunking" common myths about gaming in the classroom. "Myth: Students today are turning into zombies, glued to their games 24/7. Truth: Children and teen are drawn to novelty and technology, especially when their peers are interested as well. Instead of trying to dissuade them, we can make the most of students' passion for and easy access to gaming" (Chen, 2016). I spotted one dilemmas that was specific to my classroom last year. There were only three of my students who would have been interested or carried a passion for gaming. A lot of my students were serious athletes and didn't find much enjoyment in games and our social media. I personally think it isn't fair to assume that all students will share the same passion for gaming. I believe that is should be a learning experience for all students but shouldn't become the entire classroom because there are still students who don't find enjoyment in gaming. Also, I do wonder if there would be a difference when low socio-economic students. Would the socio-economic status of students change the passion for gaming? There wasn't much mentioned in the research but, I don't think I am ready to generalize that all students will share a passion and greater engagement for gaming in the classroom.
Cost of Technology
To implement simulations into the classroom, there doesn't appear to be any cost. On my brief search of simulations for fourth graders, I haven't found a single simulation that costs any sort of fee at all. I haven't explored very many simulation options yet but, thus far all are free. This is exciting for me because there is absolutely no reason to not use simulations in the classroom. I will be more likely to use them in the classroom because there appears to be no cost to teachers. I am sure there are some simulations that charge a small fee but, I haven't found any yet.
Ideas for Future Implementation
As I briefly explained prior in this blog post, I would love to use a simulation during PBLs. I would really love to use some of the simulations I found during a brief search to teach students about the causes of the American Revolution. I can really see a large use of simulations to add the real life experiences to several PBLs throughout the year. I look forward to continuing my search for free fourth grade content simulations.
References
