CITIZEN
Teachers model safe, ethical and legal behaviors and create learning environments that encourage students to engage in positive, socially responsible behavior.
a. Exercise safe, ethical, and legal practice with digital tools and resources and model positive, socially responsible and empathetic behavior in online interactions or when using networked devices.
I have found that in teaching digital citizenship to middle school students, we often take an unrealistic approach. Rather than focusing on simply being kind to others (a message that students have heard their entire lives), we need to move in the direction of teaching students to recognize when we have done harm and openly, sincerely repair the harm that was done. The activity below is from a 6th grade digital citizenship unit. The activity asks students to look at problematic interactions from both sides, and recognize the intention behind an act, the impact it had, and the steps needed to move forward in a positive way.
ARTIFACT: INTENTION VS IMPACT
The artifact below shows a running transcript of a live chat I conducted with many 6th grade classes over the course of the last school year. This way of communicating is often brand new to students, and I have found it very engaging for a number of reasons. In a digital space, every student - regardless of confidence, processing speed, or any other factor - has a chance to answer every question in their own voice. Students love that they can be candid, and receive support from classmates in the form of comments.
ARTIFACT: ONLINE AGGRESSION LIVE CHAT
ARTIFACT: INTENTION VS IMPACT
The artifact below shows a running transcript of a live chat I conducted with many 6th grade classes over the course of the last school year. This way of communicating is often brand new to students, and I have found it very engaging for a number of reasons. In a digital space, every student - regardless of confidence, processing speed, or any other factor - has a chance to answer every question in their own voice. Students love that they can be candid, and receive support from classmates in the form of comments.
ARTIFACT: ONLINE AGGRESSION LIVE CHAT
b. Model digital literacy and responsible management of personal data, digital identity and intellectual rights and property.
Everyone who has been a teenager remembers the feeling of change, and the feeling that you are finding your true self under the eyes of your family and friends. This is extremely difficult for middle schoolers in the digital age, where your value is quantified by likes and comments, and the line between positive and negative attention is blurred almost to nonexistence. In this activity, students look at several issues related to how people represent themselves online, and consider the benefits and pitfalls of these choices.
ARTIFACT: WHICH ME SHOULD I BE?
Another major issue in schools in the digital age is that of ownership - when we set out to create something, where do we look for inspiration? When is it OK to use others' creative work for our own purposes, and how can we best give credit where credit is due? The activity below guides 8th graders through the major points of Fair Use as a part of a larger discussion about copyright, plagiarism, and intellectual property.
ARTIFACT: FAIR USE, FAIR PLAY
ARTIFACT: WHICH ME SHOULD I BE?
Another major issue in schools in the digital age is that of ownership - when we set out to create something, where do we look for inspiration? When is it OK to use others' creative work for our own purposes, and how can we best give credit where credit is due? The activity below guides 8th graders through the major points of Fair Use as a part of a larger discussion about copyright, plagiarism, and intellectual property.
ARTIFACT: FAIR USE, FAIR PLAY
c. Understand the implications of data collection on student privacy and advocate for the awareness and protection of students’ personal and learning analytics data.
As we move more and more toward digital platforms for teaching, learning, and sharing, complicated issues arise around student privacy. At what age should students be expected to have a public presence online? Does engaging with real-world experts put students' privacy at risk? To what extent could students' personal information on megaplatforms such as Google or Clever potentially be exploited? These questions demand investigation and understanding, and in this is an area I will be dedicating future development toward.
ARTIFACTS: IN PROGRESS
ARTIFACTS: IN PROGRESS
d. Advocate for the critical evaluation and consumption of media, resources and information to build a learning culture of critical thinking, thoughtful questioning, and share responsibility/ethics.
Media literacy has become a primary concern in the age of "alternative facts" and crowdsourced journalism. Middle school students are especially open to the messages they hear around them, as they begin to form a new, more adult understanding of their personal identity. I have found that students are also incredibly aware of the pressure of stereotypes - particularly racial and gender stereotypes - in the middle grades. In the live chat below, I discuss the pervasiveness and potential harm of gender stereotypes with several groups of students. We learn that we are more than "ladies and gentlemen," and that our gender does not dictate what we should want or aspire to in life.
ARTIFACT: GENDER ISSUES LIVE CHAT
We all seem to inherently recognize that media - online, in print, and via any number of other streams - can affect our students' self-perception. In middle school, when students' are keenly aware of their identities and how they fit in to the larger group, it is incredibly important to bring these issues to the forefront in concrete terms. This activity explicitly addresses images in popular media, and what ends those images are meant to serve. Students are asked to critically evaluate, "What am I seeing? What message am I supposed to be getting from this image? Is that message helpful, or harmful?"
ARTIFACT: PICTURE PERFECT
ARTIFACT: GENDER ISSUES LIVE CHAT
We all seem to inherently recognize that media - online, in print, and via any number of other streams - can affect our students' self-perception. In middle school, when students' are keenly aware of their identities and how they fit in to the larger group, it is incredibly important to bring these issues to the forefront in concrete terms. This activity explicitly addresses images in popular media, and what ends those images are meant to serve. Students are asked to critically evaluate, "What am I seeing? What message am I supposed to be getting from this image? Is that message helpful, or harmful?"
ARTIFACT: PICTURE PERFECT