EDTC 6103 Module 4: ISTE 4 Digital Citizen
Educational Leadership in an Online World: Connecting Students to Technology Responsibly, Safely, and Ethically
My Question: How can teachers in early elementary classrooms best advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology to students?
I decided to modify my question after searching for a resource without having much luck finding what I was looking for.
Through my question I wanted to begin to explore more of 4a as well as 4c and I wanted to see the ways that teachers show that in their professional practice. I’m especially interested in how primary teachers can do that since I’m not very familiar with primary grade teaching.
New Literacies for Digital Citizenship
Teaching Digital Citizenship in the Elementary Classroom
Preparing Teachers for Technology Integration: Creating a Culture of Inquiry in the Context of Use
Considering the potential of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), skills such as reaching, interpreting, understanding, reconstructing, and sharing information have become fundamental responsibilities of citizens for a democratic society (Aufderheide, 1993; Christ & Potter, 1998) (Simsek & Simsek, 2013, p. 126).
It is interesting that they connect digital literacy to democracy. I wondered if that would motivate more teachers to instruct students in the digital literacies, if the understood the necessity for future participation in society.
Thus, the concept of shock could be interpreted partly as the feelings or the confusions of people, being aware of not having necessary skills for new literacies (Simsek & Simsek, 2013 p. 127).
Do teachers think about that related to their own feeling toward technology and their digital literacy?
Theories of Technology
Theories of autonomous technology
Technological determinism
defends the idea that technological development itself has created social changes because technology has such a revolutionary power
This might be what I believe...
Political Selection Approach
This view perceives the concept of need as the driving force behind all technological developments because new technologies are created as solutions to problems which are based on needs.
Critical Approaches
emphasize the effect of technology on people
Digital Literacy and Subdisciplines
information literacy
computer literacy
media literacy
communication literacy
communication literacy
visual literacy
technology literacy
The set of novel literacies based on new media on p. 129 are extensive!
Democratic citizenship is a wider concept which also covers the new media literacies.
One can be competent in new literacies but not use these skills for citizenship practices. p. 130
This seems like the place that an informed and inspired educator can aid understanding of digital literacies, participation and democratic citizenship.
Digital citizenship is generally defined as "the norms of behavior with regard to active technology use." Digital citizenship also includes being aware of technology related ethical, societal, and cultural issues, being able to use web applications, and being able to use those technologies for self-development like lifelong learning practices (Ribble, Bailey, & Ross, 2004) (Simsek & Simsek, 2013 p.130).
Digital citizenship could create a more transparent, connected and participatory democratic environment via its interactive, non-hierarchical, user friendly nature.
My search really tended to lead me to general strategies for teaching digital citizenship but I didn't find much on the ethical use of technology by teachers, or how to promote that type of use.
Consider using the quote on page 132 about democratic participation? What about the second sentence about lifelong learning and participation?
New literacies emerged and need to be learned due to new culture of the consumption, an acquisition of information via transformation of the solid culture into liquid culture (Simsek & Simsek, 2013 p. 133). #Here is the connection!
Digital literacies enable one to acquire a "digital identity" (Simsek & Simsek, 2013 p. 133).
Technology becomes a way to develop the digital identity which includes digital, social, and cultural norms/values. Digital citizenship and new literacies need both supporting public policies and individual responsibilities to generate necessary competencies (Simsek & Simsek, 2013 p. 134-135).
How are educational leaders to prepare their students for a digital future when they do not yet fully understand these technologies? p. 138
Educators need to reach out to all members of the community for assistance. The problem is that many do not understand, or do not want to learn about the issues related to technology use and misuse (Northern Miller & Ribble, yyyy p. 138).
Digital literacy is now a part of the new social skills we need to teach our students
it is vital that we treat online safety and digital citizenship with the same amount of seriousness and attention (Hertz, 2011).
The takeaway for me is that we all should be teaching digital citizenship and using it as a way to help students prepare for the online life that they will be a part of as they move through the school system and beyond.
We no longer live in a world in which information is scarce, and the teacher’s role is to hand deliver content to children.
Overwhelmed by information from a wealth of sources, students desperately need the skills to create new knowledge, not just consume the old.
Our human survival depends on our ability to learn new things and use ideas to solve problems in deeply ambiguous and confusing situations; and it depends on our ability to teach our children how to do this.
First, while many school and university students are using technology in their personal lives in a wide variety of ways, they are not using computers very extensively in classrooms to learn effectively in a variety of subject areas.
Third, there is a growing “digital divide” between what students actually know how to do with technology and what they are permitted to do in school.
There are growing numbers of students who routinely expect their school computers to be old, connectivity to be slow, networks to be unstable, and their teachers’ knowledge and confidence to be significantly less than their own.
While there are thousands of examples of digital media objects and teacher-created units and lessons that claim a meaningful technology component, there are far fewer authentic images of the effective and imaginative infusion of technology.
Finally, there has been no mechanism to deliberately place preservice students in technology-enhanced classrooms where experienced teachers are finding new ways of teaching and learning with technology.
Our seminar was not about technology; it was about teaching and thinking with technology.
We moved well beyond skills acquisition or a focus on software applications, and instead created a context of use within which preservice teachers learned by designing learning opportunities for real students in real classrooms.
Maybe this is along the lines of what teachers need to hear.
Learning and teaching with technology is hard, it can be overwhelming, and the field is always changing.
We might need to change the physical environment
when you begin to think differently about technology and learning, and you have different spaces in which to learn and teach, you can design different approaches to learning.
The way in which preservice teachers reacted to the ICT Program of Studies and building web pages is much like the reaction of many class room teachers and faculty members when they grapple with how to integrate technology and the curriculum.
While where you are will change with experience and the acquisition of skills and knowledge, there will always be new skills, new knowledge, and new starting places for us all.
It is also the way that experienced technology users venture into an area that is unfamiliar to them.
Because the field is changing so quickly, everyone is in some sense a beginner. And everyone has exactly the same starting placewhere they are, at the moment.
Here is a guide for Tech PD and ethical use
The best way to understand the range of issues that surround technology integration is to dig in and start working with the kinds of tasks one might actually ask a student to do.
While asking teacher to do so in a responsible and ethical way with technology