Promoting and Modeling Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

"Promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility" is the focus of National Educational Technology Standard #4 which boils down to this question: How do we as educators facilitate appropriate technology use? Currently, many school districts have the following to meet this standard such as: technology policies, staff, parents and students technology agreements, and software which blocks inappropriate Internet sites. However, is this enough to truly promote responsible digital citizenship? Or do we need more? As I searched the Internet for information on this topic, I found an interesting article which is part of Leading and Learning with Technology, Volume 32, Number 1, created by Mike S. Ribble, Gerald D. Bailey, and Tweed W. Ross titled simply, "Digital Citizenship." The article defines digital citizenship as "the norms of behavior with regard to technology use." Sounds simple enough, but what are the norms? Again the article lists nine areas of behavior of digital citizenship which include:

• "Etiquette - electronic standards of conduct and procedure,


• Communication - electronic exchange of information,


• Education - the process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology,


• Access - full electronic participation in society,


• Commerce - electronic buying and selling of goods,


• Responsibility - electronic responsibility for actions and deeds,


• Rights - those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world,


• Safety - physical well-being in a digital technology world, and


• Security (self-protection) - electronic precautions to guarantee safety."

The article continues with examples and strategies for each norm for behavior. This made me think as an educator am I doing enough to facilitate my students becoming responsible digital citizens? This question prompted another search for digital citizenship lesson plans--ReadWriteThink to the rescue. This online lesson plan resource, which displays plans focused on meeting standards as well as teachers' needs, had several lessons for teaching different aspects of digital citizenship. (Check it out.)

As of now, this investigation of digital citizenship continues...

Distance Learning Experience - Webinars

Have you ever thought about participating in a seminar on the Internet? If the answer was yes then webinars are for you. There are many available for educators who are trying to "model digital-age work and learning" which is the National Educational Technology Standard #3. One great website which offers webinars and more is Discovery Education. If your district subscribes to the educational resource for educators, then you may attend one-hour webinars on a variety of topics dealing with the concepts covered as part of this site.

Many school districts subscribe to the Discovery Education streaming which offers a variety of video clips to use in the classroom for all subjects. However, this is just part of the wealth of resources that this website offers. Recently participating in a webinar titled "Introduction to Discovery Education Science," I learned that districts may also subscribe to an entire curriculum on science which includes interactive activities, lesson plans, video clips, assessments, and more. The webinar used teleconferencing and the computer to support the Discovery Education host in his interactive presentation on how to use the online science curriculum. The one-hour session just "wets your whistle," but the host happily gave his email address for support when the educator goes "solo." If your district doesn't have a subscription, a 30-day trial subscription is available.

Next webinar experience...wikispaces.

Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

In today's technology-driven world, educators as well as parents are immersed in activities that required the use of technology. Our students (children) effortlessly learn to use any and all technology that is available to them; however, they seldom think about the issues that are part of using technology such as safety, legal, and ethical responsibilities. Therefore, educators need to examine and apply the National Educational Technology Standard 4 for Teachers--Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility. As most school districts these days require all staff and students to sign some type of technology responsibility agreement at the beginning of each school year, students will undoubtedly explore technology without a second thought to the agreement they signed. This could result in safety, legal, and ethical issues. Bottom line...teachers must facilitate and model guidelines and procedures for technology use in their classrooms and even outside of the classroom. One way to complete this is when students begin to use new technologies, establish appropriate guidelines, procedures, and agreements. For example as part of a sixth grade literature group collaboration, students will enrich and expand their ability to collaborate by using a wiki space through wikispaces.com. Each student and parent will be required to read and sign a technology responsibility agreement. (The agreement will be available for parents and students to download from my school web page under "Language Arts -- Downloads".) In addition, the teacher will model appropriate use of the collaborative space.

Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

The question for today's blog is: How do teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society? This question was created from the National Education Technology Standard 3 (NETS) and reveals the importance of having 21st century skills as an educator. Currently, most school districts have some digital tools, simple to elaborate, that teachers may use to communicate with students, parents, and the community. In the Lebanon City School District, students, parents, and community member may collaborate and communicate with students, parents, and teachers through the district website. The website gives information about teachers, assignments, school calendar, educational resources, etc.

If you are an educator that is without a supplied media tool, you can still create your own. Google is a website where you can create a "free" account to use for a variety of digital sources. With an account on Google you may access a Google web page, Google reader, Google calendar, as well as Google word processing. Using this website can expand your ability to communicate with co-workers, parents, students, and community.

Learning and Assessments Continued...

As one of many educators who are responsible for instruction for more than one subject, you are always looking for a balance in learning, teaching, and assessment. Furthermore, with high stake testing driving what instruction should be, it's nice to find technology that engages students and can even assist with assessment. As part of the National Educational Technology Standards--specifically NETS-T2, part b. (Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning and assessing their own progress.), teachers need to partner technology with learning and student-monitored assessment. An interesting website that is worth investigating if you are required to teach life sciences is cellsalive.com. This website has wonderful interactive illustrations and photographs as well as assessment which students may take and "assess their progress."



In addition, to this new instructional finding for life sciences, the wikispace still seems like a great instructional tool for any subject for students to be able to monitor their progress. The search is continuing for some type of rubric website for students to use as part of the wikispace.

Designing and Developing Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

As you and your students are constantly being bombarded with the 21st century technology, you as an educator must also think about how you can develop technology within the class which will develop in you and your students those 21st century skills. Upon examining National Educational Technology Standards--standard two which focuses on: designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments seems to be a guiding point to examine. As you dissect the parts of this standard--part b. may be a very valuable to examine more closely: develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning and assessing their own progress.

How can this environment be created? For language arts, written communication is vital so the technology implemented needs to be a good fit for such in-class media resources as literature group novels, class novels, nonfiction text, magazines, newspapers, etc. So far, a wikispace seems to be a possible technology tool that students could use to "manage their own learning and assess their own progress." There is currently a wikispace that is being set-up for a sixth grade team so that students can record their path on the literature group cycle any time and it's never missed placed or lost--hopefully. As students become acustom to using the space for this assignment, additional pages on the site may be set up for other assignments. A teacher could possibly embed some type of blog which the teacher could use for a daily recap of concepts covered.

However, there is still a piece missing--assessment. However, do students get or create a digital assessment? As you investigate the technology of Internet you may find sites such as rubistar which has the technology to help a teacher create individual rubrics for any subject or topic. Further investigation of this assessment site is required to see if may be even students could some how use this site for individually-created rubrics for student-created assessment projects.

Finding the Wikispace to Enhance Student Learning

As any educator who wants to enhance student learning by implementing technology to engage students' creativity and collaboration will definitely want to investigate the idea of having a Wikispace as part of the classroom learning environment. If your current district doesn't provide for this type of technology--don't worry--there is a site that can support individual educators with the ability to create collaboration using technology. Wikispaces.com can get you set up in a matter of minutes with a free account. However after the initial sign-up, it may take a little longer to get the collaborative space set up and running. But don't give up. Anything that enhances student learning is worth the effort!

Wikispaces can be used for a variety of communication needs. Recently created MeyerLiteratureCollaboration wikispace is being constructed to provide student collaboration when participating in literature readings. These readings can be part of literature group activities or whole classroom literature activities. Students currently participate in these activities using only traditional methods such as face-to-face discussion and hand-written discussion. With the wikispace, students have another dimension to collaborate with is not limited to the traditional classroom environment. Students can discuss using the space outside of class--anytime.

Inspiring Learning and Creativity

How does anyone inspire learning and creativity? This question must be asked and attempted to be answer if you are implementing National Educational Technology Standards (Nets) These standards will assist educators in at least motivating students who have been nurture in the 21st century with many types of technology outside of the classroom; therefore, needing similar familiar tools in the classroom to inspire and promote creativity.

One way to promote learning and creativity for students when it comes to written or typed communication is to facilitate what students are already using. The website, National Council for Teachers of English, (NCTE) assists educators by providing research, articles, and lesson plans which definitely will at least motive student learning. For example, a recently featured lesson on the NCTE website invites students to think about language--email language. Students would use several levels of Bloom's taxonomy thinking to complete the activity while using technology. (The lesson is actually part of readwritethink.org.)

A second way to promote learning and creativity for students through technology may be a webquest. It appears that through zunal.com that an educator or may even a student could access a web page that facilitates learning on many academic concepts. Educators can definitely create webquests that give instruction to their classroom students as well as anyone who has Internet access.

Another way to promote learning and creativity as well as touching upon another technology standard indicator--promote student reflection using collaborative tools is to facilitate collaboration through technology. A wiki, which is just the ticket, allows students to use technological collaboration. There are several sites on the Internet which allows educators to assist students in creating a wikispace. For example, wikispaces.com invites educators for free to do just that.

How Does Professional Growth and Leadership Promote Learning?

Wow! I create today's entry with a mind overflowing with ideas, but not in any logical order. Therefore, I'll start with questions relating to this national technology standard--Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership. As I completed research led by my instructor, (thank goodness for guidance) I think about the following questions:

What are local and global learning communities in my field of education?

So far local and global communities are intertwined as I use my account for Delicious which is a website that educators can gather information for education, technology, etc simply by bookmarking. This website also gives educators the opportunity to have network of others to use to gather even more information. (I'm excited about this technology tool, but still a little overwhelmed using it--practice makes perfect.) In addition to delicious, there is another website, Classroom 2.0 which I became a member that connects educators together to blog and share idea about web tools. I think Classroom 2.0 give me support from local and global educators when I begin using web tools such as wiki and RSS--this leads to my next question.


What creative applications of technology did you learn to improve student learning?

So far I have been introduced to such technology tools such as wiki which is a collaborative web page that students could use to collaborate for learning and teaching others. I haven't decided which wiki site to use; therefore, I didn't put a link--yet. Another tech tool is the RSS or Really Simple Syndication which is simply called a reader. It lets teachers and students subscribe to their favorite website and be update with everything new on those sites. Again, I haven't chosen a "reader" yet so I don't have a link. (It's coming soon.) Moving on...


What technology tools help you be an effective educational leader?

So far I don't feel like a leader, more like a follower; however, this blog when I share my investigation with others creates a leadership role in a sense. Also when I begin to implement such technology as wiki so that my students can collaborate, I will be providing leadership for my students. Moving on and combining the next three questions...


What are technology tools that help you evaluate and reflect on research and professional practice as well as give a good source of information that can help you, other teachers, your school, and community?

Definitely, Delicious and Classroom 2.0 are good sources for information as well as helping me reflect on professional practices. As I dig in deeper into using these technology tools, I'll be able to share my investigation with students, peers, and my learning community. (Maybe at the next staff meeting, I should invite other staff members to visit my blog?)

Technology Goals for My Classroom

This is the beginning of my journey into the 21st century. As I think about the 21st century skills that are needed to be successful, my journey should begin with what has had the greatest impact on success for our current and future society--technology. Therefore, I will examine 21st century technology standards to enhance learning within my classroom. On this journey, I will journal my discoveries as I research information through a variety of web tools.

There are several goals I want to set for my classroom that will enhance my students learning and connect to at least one of the National Educational Technology Standards (Nets). Currently, I would like to foster collaboration inside and outside of my classroom as well as enable my students to be creative and innovative.