ETL523 Critical reflection

Completing the unit Digital Citizenship in Schools has changed my understanding and appreciation of the necessity to integrate technology into teaching practice and build well designed Digital Learning Environments (DLE) that are used in conjunction with explicit Digital Citizenship (DC) instruction.

DC is more complex, nuanced and broader than I envisaged at the commencement of this unit (blogpost March 3).  I now recognise that DC as almost an ethos aligned with character education (Hollandsworth, Dowdy & Donovan, 2011) and as such, is a way of behaving that should be brought to the forefront of digital users’ awareness. This focus is reflected in Lindsay and Davis’ (2012) enlightened digitalcitizenship model which resonated with me due to its holistic approach and focus on awareness and understanding.

I had not previously considered access as a fundamental component of DC or the ramifications lack of access and opportunity has on full participation in contemporary culture (see Jenkins et. al.). If we are to prevent digital divides (Schradie) including those based not just on access but confidence and media production, then providing opportunities becomes a key focus not just of DC but in teaching practice and DLEs.

My initial idea of DLEs was narrow - focusing on actual 'environments' or platforms rather than encompassing skills, tools, habits and responsibilities (blogpost March 14). The broader definition encompasses many more digital tools than I had considered while the inclusion of habits and responsibilities made the links to DC both apparent and necessary.

Whilst familiar with the idea of using technologies in learning, particularly in terms of pathfinders, wikis and blogs, I had not afforded consideration to social media such as Facebook or Twitter. An enhanced understanding of how these tools can be used in developing ones Personal Learning Network (PLN) has subsequently developed. This has resulted in an increased awareness of how tapping into social network habits can be integrated into learning opportunities both for me and my students.

One notion that struck a chord was the idea of a personal cyber infrastructure (Gardner Campbell) in which we are the architects of our digital lives through creating, sharing, curating and building our PLNs and environments. This raises the idea of consciously designing our online identity and profile, as well as highlighting issues of safety, digital tattoos and identity (see Levine).

To develop this personal cyber infrastructure, we (and our students) must know how to operate in digital environments and collaborate, create and share in safe, effective and ethical ways (Richardson, 2008). That this is our responsibility as teachers is reinforced through Ohler’s  questioning if we consider our students to have two separate lives—a relatively digital free life at school and a digitally saturated life away from school?

DLEs provide opportunities to teach those capabilities necessary for work, study and play in a digital society and through thoughtful design can foster DC.  My personaldigital artifact consolidated many of these ideas and I now appreciate the interplay between knowledge of DC and digital tools and well conceptualised and designed DLEs that support project/inquiry/blended learning and the necessity for us to both model and learn alongside our students.

Modelling and leading DC sits well within the role of a Teacher-Librarian (TL). O’Connell (2012) argues that TLs must make use of personal learning environments, PLNs, personal web management tools, cloud computing and content curation – all of which relate to DC and building DLEs.

I was surprised by the extent to which DC in schools connected and reinforced many of the concepts explored in other TL units including information literacy/fluency, leadership, policy development and resource provision and curation.  Notions of intellectual property, copyright and creative commons are familiar to TLs and much literature concerning the role of the TL includes information literacy/fluency. The idea of social media literacy (Rheingold, 2010), digital literacy (Hague & Payton, 2010) or the encompassing ideas of meta-literacy and transliteracy (O’Connell, 2012) sit well with the TL role and along with many other aspects of DC and the design of DLEs  are reflected in the ASLA standards of professional excellence for TLs (2014).

This course has convinced me DC instruction should be an essential part of the TL role and that a full understanding of it, and its application to schools, should be a prerequisite for 21^st Century TLs and teachers. It has only been through explicitly considering the breadth of awareness and behaviours that DC encompasses that I have gained a true appreciation of the key attributes it embraces and the necessity for this to be embedded in DLEs and learners’ approaches to using technology. 

References 

ASLA, Australian School Library Association (2004). Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. Retrieved May 25, 2014 http://www.asla.org.au/policy/standards.aspx

Gardner Campbell, W. (2009). A Personal Cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review 44(5) 58–59. Retrieved 30 March, 2014 http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/personal-cyberinfrastructure

Hague, C., & Payton, S. (2010). Digital literacy across the curriculum [Handbook]. Retrieved April 7, 2014  

http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/digital_literacy.pdf.

Hollandsworth, R., Dowdy, L., & Donovan, J. (2011). Digital citizenship in K-12: It takes a village. TechTrends 55(4) 37-47.

Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century [White paper]. Retrieved 4 April, 2014  http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V.A. (2013). Citizenship. In Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: move to global collaboration one step at a time. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon Publishers

Levine, A. (2012). We, our digital selves, and us.[youTube video]. Retrieved 25 May, 2014 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziS3mpjgvI

O’Connell, J. (2012) O’Connell, J. (2012). Learning without frontiers: School libraries and meta-literacy in action. ACCESS, March, 4-7.

Ohler, J. (2010). Digital Community, Digital Citizen Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press

Rheingold, H.( 2010) . Attention and other 21st century social media literacies. Educause Review 45(5).

Retrieved 17 April, 2014  http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/attention-and-other-21st-century-social-media-literacies

Richardson, W. (2008, December 3). World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others. Edutopia. Retrieved  14 April, 2014  http://www.edutopia.org/collaboration-age-technology-will-richardson. 

Schradie, J. (2013, April 26). 7 myths of the digital divide [Blog post]. Retrieved 14 April, 2014 http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/04/26/7-myths-of-the-digital-divide/