Digital Citizenship in Schools

This week’s topic of discussion is integrating digital citizenship into our classes, and I think the common thread that ran between all three videos was that we already are discussing a lot of issues that also tie into digital citizenship, so we’re not asking teachers to tag on a bunch of work, or add in a lot of new elements; just adjust their thinking, and pieces of their teaching, to point out that a lot of what students are learning also applies to their online ventures.

From Miranda’s presentation, can I just throw in that I love the Common Sense DigCit Curriculum? I actually have it bookmarked on my work laptop, and I have pulled pieces from it for all of my classes. With ELA, I feel like it’s really easy to update and adjust lessons to incorporate digital learning, especially when we’re talking about critical thinking, evaluating information, researching, etc. Is it a completely smooth and seamless integration? For sure not. There has to be a willingness on the part of the teacher to make that shift, but I do strongly agree that it’s a shift that needs to be made.

Can I allow the overwhelmed cynic side to come out for a moment, though? Because even though I agree, and I have started to slowly change things, this isn’t a simple issue, for a number of reasons.

• If we’re being real – and let’s be real – teachers are already balancing an overwhelming curriculum that’s packed with outcomes, indicators, and assessments, and then let’s throw in school-directed P.D., and division-directed P.D., dealing with the many issues that inevitably pop up in any given classroom, and my reaction when someone asks me to implement or incorporate something new is kind of like the GIF below. There’s only so much time in a day, and a semester, and a year, and adding something new, even if there are a lot of amazing resources out there to help, is going to take a backseat if I don’t have the time and support to explore those things before being asked to include them

• and building off that last point, P.D. isn’t always helpful! And I’m not sure about anyone else, but a lot of the time, we don’t have much say in how we spend what little P.D. time we are given. I’m currently piloting the new FinLit 10 course, and a few of us in our division asked for a day to share resources and try and tackle this monstrously underprepared curriculum – our division has granted us a half-day. One half-day. So even when we ask for time, budget constraints put a serious dent in any well-laid plans you might be trying to make, and without the right support, it’s hard to integrate some of these concepts
• in an ideal world, there would be a scope and sequence document to guide all teachers through what it being covered in which grade, and which subject, but the world that we are currently teaching in is less than ideal, to put it politely. So you might go into a lesson thinking this will be a quick and easy complement to what you were already going to do, but suddenly your one or two-day lesson turns into something much more complex, because some students don’t have the background knowledge, they have no idea what you’re talking about, they haven’t ever talked about such-and-such before, or, you’ve got something nifty planned, and most of the students talked about in another class. So without some (again) time and planning, and maybe some revamped curriculum documents that build in this integration!, we’re lacking the consistency that you would so desperately need to make this meaningful
• and the real kicker – access to technology. Do some kids know how to use an ipad with more ease than their grandparents by the time they’re 5? Absolutely. But we have some who may have never seen an ipad before, don’t have a computer home, no one in the family has a smart phone, etc. I’m in a school where access to computers is something like 7-to-1? Maybe? So until we have better access within schools, it’s hard to integrate something like digital citizenship in a meaningful way. And if it’s not meaningful, it’s hard to justify tackling any kind of change

So. Am I being a bit of a downer? Maybe. But I feel like sometimes we oversimplify how “easy” things would be because we’re in a position where this is more familiar to us.