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/

ETL523 Assignment 1 reflection

This has been an interesting assignment on a number of levels. Having to create a digital artifact was a great way to encourage me to explore new tools and ways of creating and 'selling' information and ideas. I can now see how this could be a useful tool in the classroom.

The group aspect has also been interesting too. I can also appreciate the value of collaborating and would like to add some of the group members to my professional learning network. I have made more connections and had more useful interactions about an assignment through this process than in any other assignment so far. The group work certainly does promote discussion and bring a level of collegiality to things. On the downside the variations of pace of work were hard to manage - I often read very widely and take some time to bring all the strands together - which is usually only a week or so out from the due date - but this assignment forced me to move faster and i don't think that I had fully internalised all the information when we were being pushed to make decisions. As a result i'm not entirely sure that our approach is what I would be recommending now. How the wiki is marked is also interesting as the number of edits doesn't necessarily reflect the amount of thought or work that has been put in - there has definitely been discrepancies in that area.

well ... here's my digital artifact. I arrived at the idea that you need to follow 3 steps to teach digital citizenship in a class digital learning environment. I haven't gone into depth about how the choice of the digital learning environment can  empower good digital citizenship practice by virtue of its design and way its used - rather this is a how to for those who may not know where to start.

ETL523 wiki

I have just created a video for our wiki. Its the first time i've ever made a video and uploaded it to youtube. It is designed as an introduction to our wiki page and a way of conveying the information we needed without eating up our word count.

In many ways I can see how this assignment is a model of the ways in which we could implement an action/project based assignment for students. It has also encouraged me to try new tools.
Here is the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcnYUICDVSA

DLEs and group work 2

We have almost completed the initial part of our group work. And I have been pleasantly surprised. The googledoc creation and use has been quite successful as a way of communicating and adding ideas - though it would be great if some mechanism for alerting others to updates was included rather than having to forum post to let others know about updating.

Having said that I have now been encouraging others to utilise googledocs as a means of collaboratively adding to docs rather than emailing  versions. In reflection, I should not be surprised about this as I have recently felt that the most appealing pedagogical framework to me is social constructivism. I can see how this assignment and the way it is constructed fits within this and the model of a PBL or inquiry learning.

DLEs and group assignments

I confess that group assignments rather frighten me. I'm used to managing my own time and workload and to having control over the level of quality of my work (yes i'm a bit of a control freak and I lilke to do well). However, i'm hoping that this experience will be a good one and that the group i'm placed in will be cohesive.

In terms of DLEs and digital citizenship it has occurred to me that my initial idea of what a DLE is was not what narrower than the focus of this unit. I was thinking of it in terms of actual 'environments' or platforms rather than a DLE as encompassing the skills, tools, habits and responsibilities in using and accessing digital resources for learning. In some ways the broader definition allows wider probing of how DLEs can be developed and utilised to foster good digital citizenship skills and awareness.

I am really far behind in my readings and course work (yes already and its only the first few weeks!) and am feeling like I don't have a lot of the knowledge and understanding necessary to adequately contribute to the group work yet. I'm hoping in the next few posts that i may actually have some comments on some literature to add.

Digital Learning Environments

This week we need to choose a topic for a group assignment for Digital Citizenship. Our choices are digital learning environments, digital cizitenship in the curriculum, content creation and curation in digital environments and social media and networking.

I was initially drawn to the idea of content and curation - (undoubtedly its the Museum side of me) but after reflecting on things like sticky notes and diigo, Pinterest and other online tools I don't feel the same level of interest or ease of application in the education environment and I confess I have been an indifferent user of the diigo groups I have previously joined. DC in the curriculum may appear like an easier option but I think that Digital Learning environments seems like the right fit. I’m interested in the potential DLE tools like moodle, Edmodo, skooville and Mybigcampus to be used by TLs as a way of both providing access to resources as well as providing spaces for knowledge construction and sharing.

ETL523

This week marks the beginning of ETL523 Digital Citizenship.

It's probably worthwhile to record some thoughts about Digital Citizenship(DC) and how it relates to the role of the TL. My initial understanding of DC is that it relates to the behaviours and responsibilities we all have in the digital environment and that it encompasses issue such as cyber safety and bullying and awareness of digital footprints and ethical online behaviour.

In some ways the responsibility for this does not lie solely in any one teachers domain but needs to be the responsibility of the whole school - It has occurred to me that my children's primary school does not have a digital policy or framework in place to address many of these issues. In fact my 9 year old indicated that the only one that has spoken to her about cyberbullying was the WestTigers footballers when they came for a 'stamp out bullying' session.