Digital Citizenship according to a 10 year-old
flickr photo shared by dianecordell under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license
After all the readings I have been doing so far for Course 2, my mind has been shifting from optimistic to pessimistic and vice versa. I’ve felt from old-fashioned to super geeky and vice-versa. I have been so focused on digital citizenship that I think I forgot the why: why do I want to integrate technology in my classroom?
Matt Levinson said:
Perhaps most important, remember the "why" of technology adoption and evolution. Philips Andover Head of School John Palfrey articulates this well in “Prepare Kids for the Digital Economy," a recent opinion piece for the Boston Globe:
Technology has the power to engage students and make learning more fun. So much of learning happens outside of the classroom; we need to connect our in-school activities with our kids' out-of-school interests. By emphasizing creative tasks and experimentation, we can ensure that children see school in a whole new light. Maybe they develop a love of writing poetry, producing music videos, or solving hard problems in their communities.
I stopped for a moment to clear my mind. Am I doing the right thing with my students? Is it enough? Is it too much?
Sure! Digital citizenship, bullying and sexting are serious matters. I’m teaching young kids, from 4/5 to 10/11 years old. And I know by experience as a parent, that sometime, we shouldn’t give to the children explanations before they ask questions. Is it the right moment for me to teach those notions?
During those moments of questioning, I went to my old friend Google to look for answers.
I read this article from Vicki Davis. She talks about “what students need to know about digital citizenship” giving a list of 9 Ps. Amongst the list, I realized that I have taught or talked about most of them. The last P, Personal Brand (or digital footprint) is the one I introduced to my students last week.
Thanks a million Suzy Ramsden! My colleague shared with me how she taught digital footprint to her first graders.
I adapted her ideas to suit my Grade 5 group.
I asked them to give a definition of the digital citizenship (I recorded them, unfortunately and sadly I was unable to convert the file on mp3)
It’s when you’re a digital online and when you act online and you follow rules. And you have the digital citizenship as soon as you’re online, when you click on the Google chrome icon or when you’ve an account, you start a footprint and then you become a digital citizen.
Digital citizenship is respecting the online world, you have an account and you respect it and you respect others.
To illustrate, we watched Super Digital Citizen from Common Sense media.
Once again, my students were very into it and gave great answers.
They played online a lot. They were aware of not using their real names and to have a secure password.
If it’s too simple, it’s easy to hack.
Something that is good digital citizen is to ask if we can share. Like if I took a selfie with S, I’d ask S, if I can share.
What do you want to ask?
Because he might feel embarrassed.
We carried on watching Power of Words also from Common Sense media.
[caption id="attachment_161" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Image by M. Brutel[/caption]They preferred this video than the first one as it makes more sense. That’s their words!
During the discussion, most of them had experienced trash talking online. They also liked the STOP advice.
- Step away
- Tell a trusted adult
- Okay sites first
- Pause and think online
To conclude the lesson, they filled in a digital footprint answering the questions:
- What should be the characteristics of a good digital citizen?
- Have you ever made digital mistakes and have you fixed them?
- Do you have some examples of times when you’ve been a good digital citizen?
This lesson was more a discussion about digital citizenship. However the students really needed it. They were very at ease to talk about the subject and really wanted to share their experience. The talk was lively and students respected each others by taking turn. During the animated discussion, one of my students told me that the topic should be brought up for an assembly.
[caption id="attachment_158" align="aligncenter" width="225"]
Image by M.Brutel[/caption]
Oh! What a great breakdown of teaching digital citizenship to your fifth graders, which happens to be what I teach as well! I will definitely be using your blog post to help me out next week.
ReplyDeleteI have also used the common sense media Rings of Responsibility lesson (link to lesson: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/rings-responsibility-4-5) and it has always been really effective in getting the kids up and moving and thinking about their own responsibility not only to themselves but also to their family, their community and of course, their friends.
Now how do you plan on keeping your students accountable to their digital footprints? In my units of inquiry I always like to do mid-unit check-ins and have them reflect on a written piece they did at the beginning or a think/pair/share based on their new findings... maybe you could have them look back at their footprints and give NEW specific examples of how they demonstrated some of their choices online.
Thanks for the post, ideas and inspiration! NKS
Salut Nadine!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I’m glad you enjoyed my post.
I’m very pleased with how the lessons went with this class as I was just trying. And every time they surprised me! Probably because I thought they were too young for thinking about the Internet!
To answer your questions, I’m thinking of doing a research lesson later in the year like they could review things they’ve learned.
Thanks
Magali
I teach grades 6-12. I depend on junior school teachers to introduce Digital Citizenship. I actually think ES kids really understand the ideas of saying thank you to people for their work (citing), of being kind off-line and on-line, and are open to the idea of learning from lots of different people. So please stick with it...it's really appreciated!!
ReplyDeleteI really hope you do an assembly...and share the results!
Sometimes I have the same battle as you between being optimistic and pessimistic when it comes to technology. There are so many wonderful things about it however there is so much to teach my students too!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the videos you used to talk with your students. I haven't had a chance to show any of them to my grade 4 students, however after watching the links you included I think my group will enjoy and benefit a lot from them too! It's great to know that there are resources out there to help us teach these important concepts to our students and we don't have to come up with it on our own (link to: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/video/educators/digital-citizenship).
Thank you Danelle for your comment!
ReplyDeleteAs you said, we aren’t on our own to teach them those concepts but I think the students appreciate hearing them from someone else than their parents.
Magali
Thanks for the great links to the Common Sense Media videos-my kids have loved them! I like the STOP advice too:-) My own students (7-8years old) related it to our research on digital citizenship from the website Kidsmart (https://www.kidsmart.org.uk/teachers/ ) which uses the S.M.A.R.T. rules. Theres a section for Educators which you may find useful too !
ReplyDeleteSorry my comment published a little too soon! There are some really useful lesson plans that are geared towards students in KS1 and KS2 so you know that the material will be age specific which is great. From looking at the SMART cartoons and doing the activities my children have become far more knowledgeable on digital citizenship which I am not sure I could have achieved this without a useful tech tool! Your links really supported this too so thanks a lot!
ReplyDeleteHi Laura,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments!
Yes, I agree kids respond really well to digital citizenship. Sure, this topic needs to be taught at school too.
Those websites are great resources!
Magali