Month: March 2024

In today’s world and overreliance on technology for all of our new information, it is hard to identify what is true and what is false. Digital literacy is extremely important to teach and an aspect of it has been added into the Saskatchewan curriculum. It is not as thorough as the NCTE framework but it lays down a foundation for teachers have some creativity with how they teach there students.

Since digital literacy is such a growing concern for students as technology begins to advance, and trolls on the internet become harder to recognize, there has been many lesson plans, worksheets, and information to help spread information on how to identify fake news.

The article Teaching Digital Literacy Now by the School Learning Journal talked about different ways of evaluating an article. They go into depth about:

• • Rethinking how we teach evaluation
  • Read laterally
  • Keep it non-political
  • Talk about social media more

In my field placement, the teacher would always do an activity related to the subject we were about to. For example, doing a Wordle before English. You can start off a class with an activity such as spot the troll. We did this activity in class and I think it would be a fun and educating tool to help students determine who is real and who is fake on social media.

My major is Physical Education, and currently I see a lot of videos on my social media about “getting abs in a week”, or the “take this supplement and lose 30 pounds in a month”. I really liked this worksheet bias in the news to be able to educate students on identifying information that is valid. I may have to tweek it so that is related to physical education, but I think that it would be an awesome tool for teaching digital literacy.

This week was my first ever experience actually coding myself. I have witnessed it one time last year while I was an EA, as EYES came into the classroom and helped the students make their own little video game. I tried Pirate Plunder on Hour of Code.  I thought it was super cool and a fun little brain teaser. It took me a while to figure out what the “If pirate in front of captain” code, but once I figured it out there was no stopping me from getting that sweet certificate at the end. Here are some screenshots from Pirate Plunder.

I had a blast with this coding game. I think coding is super important and is super fun for the kids. When I saw EYES come into the classroom last year in the grade 3/4 classroom I was in, all of the kids loved it. They didn’t want to put the computers away at the end of it. I honestly am not the best with technology, so I am unsure on when I would use these coding skills from this game into real life, but I think this is an awesome way to teach kids how to problem solve and solve puzzles. I am excited to learn more about coding as it is such a growing thing for youth and learn more ways that I can put it into the classroom. I also really like how the Hour of Code website has lesson plans. I am definitely looking forward to take a browse through those.

I faintly remember being taught about my digital footprint. I think it was one time in elementary school where it was brought up. I remember watching a video that definitely made me think. I believe it was a scare tactic that worked on me. I remember askfm was really big at the time. All of my friends were on it. It was an app where you can choose to ask someone a question anonymously and that person can choose to answer it or not depending on the question. I remember right after the video looking through my askfm trying to find any answer I gave that made me question if it was good for my digital footprint. I ended up deleting a bunch of posts and a month later deleting my account. The video definatley scared me into being very smart online. To this day, when I post something on social media, I think about what it makes me look like as a person, what it could look like to my future employer, and what it could like to my future students if they ever where to find access to my social media.

This approach proved is purpose back then, although when I get into teaching my own lessons on digital footprint, I think I would do it a little differently. When I teach this in my own classroom, I would want students to watch a video explaining their digital footprint and how it has an impact on their lives. I would then give the students a list of questions, asking their opinion on their relationship on social media with the nine elements of digital citizenship, focusing mainly on the elements 3-9. I would also have them look through their own social media accounts, and write a little paragraph on if they think they have a positive digital citizenship, and what they can start or stop doing in order to have a more positive social media outlook. Something I also liked in the article Character Education in the Digital Age was about putting technology into a broader social context. This article talked about a goal where Students will study the personal, social, and environmental impacts of every technology and media application they use in school. I think it would extremely beneficial for students now, because this would have been awesome for me to learn in elementary school and high school.