Well today I definitely learned something new! I coded my own video game! Doing an Hour of Code on code.org, I have successfully coded my own video game. The instructions were fairly simple to follow… Even though a couple times I wasn’t quite sure what to do, the program lets you know of your mistake and allows you to correct it before you move forward. This activity definitely felt a little more than a beginner activity but it was a lot of fun to see the work some together in the end. I took a screen recording of the process which is quite long, but it was a lot of fun for myself. Tune in here to check out my progress!

As far as coding in the classroom, I think there is 100% a spot for it. One of my few regrets in life is not learning more how computers work on the inside and with code. Technology is such a huge part of our lives and culture nowadays that I think it is so important that students learn at least the basics of coding. Now that I’ve been able to gain a little bit of experience in coding, I would definitely feel a lot more comfortable letting my kids play around with these programs and I’d feel confident that I would be able to help out students who are beginners in the area of code.

Photo by Hero Images/Hero Images

This was a very interesting assignment. I have spent some time doing a little bit of research to try and find something in the Saskatchewan Curriculum about digital citizenship and it has been quite difficult to be honest. In all honestly, I focused mainly on the middle year curriculum, grades 6-8, as it is my area of teaching. As a result, I have STRUGGLED to find anything relevant when it comes to digital literacy or citizenship.

I did, however, find a few interesting things while doing some research. The only outcome in the 6-8 curriculum that I could find that even eludes to digital citizenship a little bit was in the grade 6 Health curriculum which was the following outcome:

This outcome does not say directly that it includes digital citizenship, however, one could make a fairly easy argument that it falls into the category of developing identity as well as dealing with mass media outlets.

During my research, I was able to dive into the Regina Catholic School Division staff portal and find some of the ressources that they offer to their teachers. Unfortunately, I cannot share any of what is on the site through this blog as one would need access to the RCSD staff portal which is only available to staff members… Another important note is that as I was looking, I noticed that the RCSD site eluded to the fact that the PAA curriculum has some Digital Literacy things in it, but when I clicked on the curriculum for PAA on the government site, there was nothing there on Digital Literacy.

As I sit here and say the government has no ressources multiple times, I’d be remised to neglect the Digital Citizenship Ministry Continuum. This IS a document that is provided by the government which outlines Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. All of the nine elements are important to digital citizenship in the classroom. These elements are especially important when students can access the internet so easily, communicate with others and need to focus on navigating through our digital world securely and while keeping in mind a healthy balance of screen time, relationships and education.

As a current practicing teacher, I ensure that I always focus a little but on Digital Citizenship in my classroom. These lesson often fall into my Health class or Religious studies class as that curriculum includes healthy relationships. I absolutely believe that Digital Citizenship has a place in school and curriculum, I’m just not quite sure that the Saskatchewan curriculum is all the way caught up when it comes to outcomes for middle year students, the age at which most students are first learning and interacting with technology in a more vulnerable way.

I had the joy of growing up in the 90s and the early 2000s. I grew up with a GameBoy, SEGA and a N64. The big difference between video games today and back then, other than the obvious point of the sophisticated graphics and massive processing units, is of course that there was no online play back then. Once I hit middle school, in comes MSN Messenger, cell phones (flip phones of course) and an early introduction to online video games.

In school, we really did not have any digital literacy or cyber safety taught to us until high school. While I was in elementary school, kids being online seemed to be a fairly new thing and teachers were not talking about it very much. Although we were chatting with MSN, using webcams, and sharing photos, it felt as though teachers and most parents had no clue what was really going on while kids were on MSN and online, whether it was good or bad. Once in high school, I remember a little bit more digital literacy happening, but as discussed with some classmates, it was more of the police coming in and scaring you with committing a crime. Teachers were not educating about online usage. Teachers were not involving themselves with students’ online lives when I was in school.

Now that I am a teacher, I make a point of explaining and teaching my students about digital literacy. One of my favorite ressources is from Common Sense Learning. It is a great interactive resource for all grade levels which includes videos, activity sheets, and stories. I think it is very important to teach digital literacy because our children and students are online so often. It has become such a part of regular life for most people that we often forget the risks of being online so often. My students often tell me about things they’ve done or said online and most of the time I’m pretty surprised and I try to teach them about the dangers. Some students do not take it seriously and I do not think that they will until something bad happens to them unfortunately. I do my best with the resources that I have and hope that it helps most students be more conscious going forward!

Photo by ibreakstock

I have been using Twitter for a very long time. I feel like I jumped on Twitter in the very early stages of the app. I have seen all the changes that the app has gone through and I believe that it has become a great tool for just about anyone to use. I mostly use my personal Twitter for sports, news and following some of my friends and what they are up to. I do not tweet much from my personal account. At times, I will retweet and likes things, but rarely do I tweet my own ideas from my personal account.

I am only just starting to use Twitter professionally. I like finding new resources, reading about different apps and find new ways to engage my students through all the different spaces on Twitter. I have used Twitter Spaces a couple times which allows you to have full on conversations with people about certain topics which is a fairly new feature of Twitter. It is a neat feature that allows you to actually have verbal conversations with anyone in the “Space” and discuss the main topic. I have found it more useful than a blog because of the verbal conversation aspect and being able to immediately provide feedback or ask questions.

In my opinion, Twitter could be a very effective tool used in the classroom under certain circumstances. I think that it is a great way for students to share their ideas with a community and to learn new things as well. It is a great way to connect locally, provincially, nationally and even internationally. This allows students to broaden their horizons and really engage with different parts of the world, outside of their communities.

I do have some concerns with Twitter being used in a regular classroom setting. Twitter is not moderated from inappropriate material in the same way that other social media platforms are. I would have a tough time allowing middle school students onto Twitter given the fact that it is possible that they stumble upon violent and gory images, and even in some cases it is possible that they may find some pornographic images. I do think that there are other programs that could be supplemented that feature a similar mini-blog format such as Seesaw Blogs or Google classroom.