Digital Citizenship & Responsibility

Candidates demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to model and promote digital citizenship and responsibility.

Element 4.1 Digital Equity - Candidates model and promote strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools and resources and technology-related best practices for all students and teachers.

Element 4.2 Safe, Healthy, Legal & Ethical Use - Candidates model and facilitate the safe, healthy, legal, and ethical uses of digital information and technologies.

Element 4.3 Diversity, Cultural Understanding & Global Awareness- Candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to support diverse student needs, enhance cultural understanding, and increase global awareness.

FRIT 7235 Copyright Law

Summary for FRIT 7235 Copyright Law

In FRIT 7235 we were asked to review and understand the Copyright Law and what the SCCPSS Board Policy is concerning copyright and proper utilization of materials without breaking federal law. It goes into what Fair Use is, and what the Board Policy is towards use of Fair Use materials and exactly how they can be used in the classroom setting.

When reading and reflecting on this assignment, I understand the exteme importance for both ourselves as educators, and our students understand how to utilized resources that are now available due to the explosion of technology use in our society.

FRIT 7234 Information Fluency and Inquiry

Digital Information Fluency Infographic

Summary for FRIT 7234 Information Fluency and Digital Information Fluency Infographic

In FRIT 7234, I created an Information Fluency infographic that helped explain exactly to students what responsibilites come with being students in the 21st Century classroom. Being able to locate, evaluate, and ethically use information is vital for any society, and is vital in a world where copyright infringement, plagiarism, and commentary can cloud the facts and credible sources. I found the data concerning where students find their information to be extremely enlightening, and can be used in helping them when teaching them information fluency.

This project utilized PiktoChart, and again was impressed at how graphs and design elements were easily added with just a click of the mouse. I also saw how much information, and the impact of that information can be very impactful if done correctly. Keeping everything streamlined keeps the subjects eye on the main content. I tried to keep it interesting, yet used images that reinforced the subject matter in the infographic iteself. I plan to utilize infographics throughout my career, whether in the classroom, library, or in a professional development setting.

FRIT 7739 Collaborative Unit on Digital Citizenship

Summary for FRIT 7739

Collaborative Unit on Digital Citizenship

In FRIT 7739 we were asked to collaborate with a teacher at our site to work on a Digital Citizenship Unit that would be a benefit to the student's in the classroom. I worked with Mrs. Taylor who teaches second grade at my school. I have taught second grade before, and we went over the major issues that she sees in the classroom. Going on the internet safely, finding information, and properly citing sources (avoiding plagiarism) were the main issues she was having a problem with. She had mentioned password problems too, but she has stated she has wanted me to work on the three above areas. I have worked with her class over 3 days. The students were very engaged, and many started off not knowing what plagiarism was. While utilizing this unit, we went on webhunts together based on their interests. Many of the resources (such as the kid friendly web browsers) were used.

Mrs. Taylor was very happy with how the lessons turned out. The students took assessments after each lesson, and explained their answers. I found it to be an overall success. However, next time I plan to have them do a whole online assignment. This may be researching a particular person or animal and have them pull information to add in a paragrah while citing the source. I have been teaching kindergarten and first grade for the past few years, so I think second grade can handle a harder asseessment.

Reflection

From the start of doing this project, I had gotten great support not only from Mrs. Taylor, but also from the students. They immediately showed an incredible interest in learning more about the internet and how to gather information. While working on the unit, we were able to do web searches on topics that interested the students in the class. It was the students that named many of the topics they wanted to find out about on the internet. Many times, Mrs. Taylor’s students have admitted to going to other websites that they were not supposed to. This can be a problem, especially if proper filtering (or too much filtering) is in place at the site or the district.

I felt from the start that it is important that teachers and students know proper techniques for finding and citing information on the internet. This is vital as to keep Copyright Laws from being infringed upon. I was also happy that two of the students that have problems writing did great when responding to the first assessment due to the typing aspect of it.

Overall, I was pleased at how this turned out. The Nearpod lessons were great, as they had interactive parts in which the students could reinforce what they have learned. However, this may be a problem in a district that does not have a subscription to this particular bundle of lessons. However, I can always substitute with a screencast or other form of educational media to serve the same purpose. Also, I would like to expand the area on plagiarism and citation. Though this is just second grade, and they grasped the basics, I believe more could have been done in this area.

Overall, this was a great experience. I had a blast with the kids, and I really feel I made that connection with the subject matter. Using a blended format, it was much more meaningful to the students, and even Mrs. Taylor said that it seemed to make that “click” or “ah-ha” moment. Hopefully, I will be able to do this again with other classes. I have let Mrs. Taylor share this unit with her grade group, and hopefully they will get some benefits from it.

Reflection on Standard 4: Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

Through this program, I feel that I have learned an incredible respect for Digital Citizenship as well as the responsibility needed not only from the students, but also from the teacher, and instructional technology specialist. Utilizing the internet can be fun and open up a world or knowledge to our students. It allows the class to go and see places they normally would never be able to do. This introduces them to a variety of diversity in cultures, places, and a variety of subjects. However, with the internet comes major responsiblities. While creating the above artifacts, it struck me how important it is to protect our students from the harmful sites that may be inappropriate, and also full of misinformation. By putting together a variety of resources, I found many "kid friendly" search engines that can help my classes. Going through this program has also allowed me to gain a better insight into what digital citizenship is. It has taught me that all students should have equal access to technology, and to be able to use that technology, even if adaptive resources or hardware needs to be used. Also, I felt when reading over our Copyright Policy for our district, that there are so many resources that are available to us under Creative Commons and Fair Use.

When completing my collaborative unit with Mrs. Taylor, the children really seemed hooked and fascinated about what was taught. Computers have always been an interest to many students, but helping them how to fully understand not only appropriate sites, but also how to find information and cite it correctly. Plagiarism is a huge problem, and it is vital that all students understand how to be a responsible digital citizen.