Major Project Update

First let me begin by saying: The February Blues are real! 

In the second week of February, I met with a colleague over zoom to get some ideas for my major project. She is a former student in ECI832 – Amanda Brace.  We met over zoom where she showed me some of the work she had done in previous EdTech classes (wow -she is talented!). She first walked me through the Common Sense Education website to give me some ideas of the age appropriate activities there. I told her that I was going to create a document for primary grade students. Amanda suggested taking a look at the lessons in the grade K – 2 tab to get an understanding of the format and what was included in those lessons. She then helped me to plan the template for the lessons in my digital citizenship resource on Google Docs. She really encouraged me to start with the basics and add to the lessons after the initial lessons were developed. She added that I could find some “ready made” videos or handouts but encouraged me to try to make some of my own. (I’ll keep you posted on those original pieces – lol). 

I felt really inspired by Amanda’s tutorial and set out to use the February break to make some real progress on this resource. Well, let’s just say – THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. Back to that notion of the “February Blues”. The weather turned cold. Social media seemed to be flooded with people on tropical vacations (and I was not one of them). My daughter had a (minor) car accident because road conditions were brutal. And I made the mistake of watching the news – so much negativity! So I turned to Netflix for some positivity and escape from reality. And you all know what happens when you start watching Netflix…

Well, I digress. Back to the MAJOR PROJECT UPDATE!

At the end of the break, I managed to get myself back into the mode of homework. I began looking through the lessons on Common Sense Education. I narrowed down the particular grade I wanted to focus on (Grade 2). I looked through the Saskatchewan Curriculum Guide for Grade 2 to make connections to the outcomes with Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. I located the key understanding from Saskatchewan’s Digital Citizenship Continuum. As I filled in the template with these fundamentals, I was able to formulate the general outline of my resource.

When we returned to school, I decided to jump right into using some of the lessons from Common Sense Education to see the reaction the students had. Here are a few things I learned:

• What engaged the students (and what didn’t).
• How to improve the lessons
• There is a real need to start with our primary grade students in digital citizenship and media literacy!

Most importantly, I have learned that my lessons need to include the students’ own knowledge and promote the idea of “digital leadership” to empower the students to fulfill the expectations of becoming responsible digital citizens.