Literature Review Week #4 Making Good Digital Citizens

            The use of technology and social media is a growing trend in schools these days.  In my Learning through Technology class we have discussed the advantages and the necessity of using technology in our current or future classrooms.  Preparing students for their futures is an important part of education and technology is going to continue to be a part of everyone’s future.  Teaching students how to appropriately use social media has become an important part of school curriculum since more and more teachers are using social media in the classroom.

            In the article, Promote Good Digital Citizenship: 10 Ideas For Rich Academic Student Discussion Online by Michael Gorman, Gorman talks about the guidelines teachers can use to teach students to be good social media citizens.  He uses the example of posts or comments on a discussion board or blog.

            Gorman’s first two ideas are that students’ discussions about a topic should include creating, evaluating and synthesizing information about the topic and that the teacher should use the discussions as a gauge for how well the students understand the topic.  The first idea uses the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain.  Since the teacher should use the discussions more as a

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barometer for class understanding Gorman’s third idea suggests that if discussions are graded it should be for participation.  Gorman’s fourth and fifth ideas are that students should treat the discussions like they would a paper report they were handing in to be graded.  Discussions should have proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, concise ideas, and stay on topic.  All references should be cited, no plagiarism.  Posts can be seen by anyone online so they need to be respectful, considerate, and keep the student’s identity safe.  Gorman’s next point emphasizes the use of the World Wide Web, make the discussions interesting with videos, links or pictures.  Why be boring and bland when the Internet can be used to liven up a discussion?

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The next two ideas Gorman gives are to keep in mind the concepts behind the discussion board and make a rubric to help guide the students’ thinking and learning.  Gorman says to keep the 21st century competencies in mind when writing the rubric.  Model good digital citizenship and comment on students’ discussions.  And the final idea from Gorman is to encourage students to start their own discussions. 

            Michael Gorman is an acclaimed connected educator.  He is a blogger and teacher who has won numerous awards.  He has presented at many school technology conferences focusing on integrating technology and 21^st century skills into schools.  He is a consultant for four organizations and is an advisor and contributor to the magazine I found his article in.

            Digital citizenship is an important topic that all teachers should teach their students.  While reading Gorman’s article there were some concepts I did not understand so I investigated and found some information about them.  This is my first class in my adventure to become a master of education so some common concepts are still new or vague to me.  I explored those concepts and shared the links in case others are interested.  I was still confused exactly what 21^st century competencies were so I read this article from the 21^st century competencies page.  I learned that the competencies and Bloom’s higher levels require creative thinking and the evaluation or analysis of knowledge.

            Since I am going to be an elementary teacher I was interested in how best to teach digital citizenship to my demographic.  I found a helpful article by Mary Beth Hertz about this exact idea.  Hertz writes that children as young as 6 use social networks in online games or sites about their favorite TV shows.  Hertz uses storybird and schoology to give her students freedom to write comments and learn from mistakes in a safe and monitored environment.  Learning correct practices is also important so students do not become cyberbullies.  After exploring these sites, I may use them to create a safe and fun learning environment to teach my future students about proper digital citizenship.

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            I feel I should have a good understanding of what I am teaching before I try to teach students the information.  I agree that teachers do not need to have all the answers, as I have seen teachers at my school admit they do not know the answer to a student’s question.  However, I do believe that a teacher should have a good understanding of important concepts.  Digital citizenship has become a significant part of the classroom and will gain importance in the future.  Technology will become a larger part of classroom learning therefore digital citizenship will be as important as an anti-bullying or plagiarism speech. 

           

Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning:

Learning and using correct digital citizenship will be an important part of a student’s life since technology is becoming more integrated into all jobs.  Students will have the skills and knowledge to be successful and be good digital citizens.

Evaluate and use a variety of current technologies to enhance content instruction and to advance students’ technological literacy:

Digital Citizenship will provide students with the tools needed to use sites like storybird, schoology or any social media site safely and responsibly.  The article also gives connected educators the ideas of how to implement good digital citizenship in the classroom.

Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of safe, ethical, legal and moral practices related to digital information and technology:

Understanding and teaching good digital citizenship will cover all of these practices.

Demonstrate an understanding of the use of adaptive technologies and other digital resources to personalize and differentiate learning activities for every student:

Michael Gorman’s second and third ideas come to mind.  Using blogs or discussion boards as a gauge to see how well students understand the topic may be better than having the students’ grades hinge on their posts’ quality.  Also, using different media in the blog or discussion board may help students understand and learn the topics based on different learning styles.

Evaluate, adapt and reflect upon emerging tools and trends by participating in local and global learning communities and by reviewing current research and professional literature:

I feel my learning sphere has grown since the start of this assignment.  I used the Internet and found information about a new and important topic, digital citizenship article, and researched topics I knew little or nothing about such as Bloom’s Taxonomy and 21^st Century Competencies.  I found an article about how to teach digital citizenship in an elementary setting.  I feel digital citizenship is important to teach students since the world is connected by technology.  

Even though I work in a school I know I still have a lot to learn.  I enjoy the idea of being a connected educator, I feel like the burden of being a great educator can be shared instead of being the sole responsibility of one person.  My class has made me see that connected educators can be a huge global team.  Every member of a team must contribute, and in this instance collaborate, to be successful.  I think collaborating with others will be a great way for me to, hopefully, become a good teacher.

I hope I am doing this right. This is my first time blogging. It has been rough water so far. I have tried to follow my class about three different times now, hopefully one of them is the correct way. When I googled for help on following people's blogs on blogger I have a suspicion it was leading me astray. I will try to entertain and entice. I hope there can be some discussion about great teaching ideas as well. I will try to improve my blog and post more soon. Thanks for reading this far!