Week 8: Digital Citizenship "Current Practices"

 According to The 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship Your Students Need to Know,  my students practice five of nine elements when using technology in my classroom. 

1. Digital Access: I am lucky that I work in a district that has been 1:1 since 2012. We also give MiFi to students who do not have the internet at home. So, for our district, we do not have an access issue. 

2. Digital Communication: On our campus, we have students practice sending emails to their teachers during Homeroom every week. We usually have a specific lesson to go with the email they are sending. It teaches them about the heading of the email, the body, the tone, and how to respond. I also have students communicate to me through email for specific assignments or requests, so they can practice using their email. 

3. Digital Literacy: My students do frequent research on Artists, Art Materials, and Art Movements. We talk extensively at the beginning of the year about checking the validity of a website and if the site can be backed up by another site. We also, re-visit this throughout the year whenever we do research. 

4. Digital Etiquette:  Using Schoology, students participate in discussion boards, leave comments on students' work, and respond to me in messages. We have lessons at the beginning of the year about their digital footprint and how they should always be positive when interacting online. 

5.  Digital Security: We talk to students about not clicking on sites that do not have an https at the end or if possible not going to a site that a teacher has not directed them to. If they are doing their own research, we talk about not clicking on links and putting in personal information, even on school laptops. 

There is room for improvement, especially with all of the technology we have on campus. At times I feel like I am an IT Personal, instead of an Educator!

Comments

  1. Alison SmithFebruary 28, 2021 at 2:20 PM

    Tara, that’s wonderful that you are already integrating aspects of digital citizenship into your classroom through 5 of the 9 elements. I really appreciate the attention you are giving to digital communication. When I taught 7th grade, I was so shocked with how students wrote emails. I taught many mini lessons about the subject of an email, the greeting, content, grammar etc. Also, your attention to digital literacy will really prepare students for college and careers. Especially in today’s world, students need to be able to find resources that are credible and reliable and decipher the ones that are not. –Alison Smith

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tara ThompsonMarch 1, 2021 at 4:52 AM

    Hi Alison,
    Thank you. I think at the high school level, they really must be able to write an email. It is one of the main ways they communicate with us, in a non-pandemic year, so for them to understand it and to be done properly is important. Even when I taught seventh and eighth grade, our district was big on email when we became a 1:1 district.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr. ThomasMarch 8, 2021 at 3:19 PM

    Tara,
    I appreciate the point by point connection to these and your classroom. Do you see a space in your curriculum to address the other four?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tara ThompsonMarch 8, 2021 at 6:09 PM

      Hi Dr. Thomas,
      If it were a normal year the answer to your question would be yes. However, I feel like this year students cannot handle anymore right now. I see ways to implement them next year, but at this point in the year, I feel students are going to push back.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 10: Google Meet Attendance Extension

Image
  If you are using Google Meet and are struggling with keeping up with attendance, this is a must-have for attendance. I know for me teaching Hybrid, I have Four options that I can put into my attendance, so mistakes can be made easily! This extension has helped me be able to go back and correct my attendance later, without any questions on whether I the student was on campus, virtual, absent, or tardy. It is all there in the extension. For a much better explanation, watch the tutorial video below. And if you are not using this valuable extension or are about to go into Hybrid teaching, you must start using this! Since we all love data so much, this extension is just a great way to keep track of our kiddo's attendance. It also helps you when you are gathering information for IEPs, 504s, or RTI information. They are also constantly updating the extension with new features. The newest one is a ghost feature. It tells you how long the students have been idle on the meet. This tells me...
Read more

Week 8: Remind Messaging App

Image
  Remind is the most invaluable communication app out there for educators to use to stay in touch with students and parents. It has even evolved into a system much like Google Voice, where you can call parents and students from your personal cell phone and it will hide your phone number.  Another great feature of this app is that translates to over seventy languages. This translation is a two-way street. You can translate your messages before you send them, or the recipient can translate them to their preferred language once they receive a message from you. I teach in a Title One District that has a 98% Latinx population, so this has become my go-to way to communicate with parents and students over phone calls. It also is a great way to keep documentation of the conversations you have had with the parents. My students also love the accessibility they have to me through this app. They can reach me quickly. I will get a notification on both my phone and computer when they send m...
Read more

Week 15: Dangerously Irrelevant

Since this is our final blog of the semester, I thought I would give my thoughts on how following this page has gone for me as an educator. I like that there is a page for educators that is not afraid to dip their toes into politics. I think education is political, and too many are afraid to broach the subject as such. Scott Mcleod has found a way to not only be political but thought-provoking, relevant, bring technology and leadership to the forefront of this blog. He started a podcast this past year called  Silver Lining for Learning  that chronicles issues globally and how they intersect here with the United States Education system. If you have time, I would check out the podcasts, they are enlightening and relevant to what we have learned this semester. I will continue to follow this blog, it has captured my attention! http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
Read more