The concepts that I have learnt from studying this
course have influenced my new understanding of what it means to be a Digital
Citizen, how Digital Citizenship (DC) can be taught and how Digital Learning
Environments (DLE) can aid in the preparation of 21st Century
learners.
My original definition posted on my blog (Edwards,
2015a), was somewhat simple leaving out many key elements such as DLE, Personal
Learning Network, Personal Learning Community, habits, attitudes, and
leadership towards the effective implementation and safe use of technology in
an educational environment. My revised definition combines these key elements,
evolving and developing as an individual matures in their participation in
digital technology, to hopefully develop a contributing member of society who
is aware of local, national and international civic issues participating,
creating and collaborating safely and ethically to be informed and inform
others.
The concepts of DC provided in this course, Ribbles’
Nine Elements of DC (Ribble, 2015), ISTE Standards (ISTE, 2015), DER-NSW
domains and themes of DC (NSW Department of Education & Communities, n.d.) Enlighten Digital Citizen (Lindsay
& Davis, 2012) provide the platform for preparing a school’s DLE as they
identify key issues.
Students are using mobile devices, creating,
collaborating and sharing more information online than ever before (ACMA,
2013). Governments are supporting DC through initiatives such as the Digital
Education Revolution, evidence of effective technology integration into the
curriculum increases student success in numeracy and literacy (Stavert, 2010),
discussions about future issues such as digital information rights of those who
are deceased (Coleman , 2015), the cost of cybercrime to Australia (Edwards,
2015), more than half of the Futures top 500 Companies comprising of technology
companies (Fullerton , 2015) has occurred on news programs, further
highlighting the need for initials step to be undertaken developing digital
citizens and a schools DLE.
My knowledge has extended to understand that the preparation
and implementation of a schools DLE is imperative in harnessing what students
are already doing ie, communicating online, buying and selling, sharing,
creating, curating, collaborating, developing PLN and PLC. A key learning from
this subject is that a school DLE needs to embed DC into the curriculum and
teachers need to accept it for it to be most successful (Chen & Orth, 2013). This new knowledge of DC and a
schools DLE I believe will challenge teachers and students, as current
pedagogical practices will evolve and change to cater for the changing needs of
students and society. Although change is occurring and pedagogical theories are
shifting, some educational institutions are behind, hindering the skill
development required in the 21st century that will empower students to be
innovative, lifelong learners and equip them for the changing needs of the
workforce.
From my new
learnings, I believe that the development of a school’s DLE needs to be headed
by the executive staff, developing a team consisting of faculty members,
students, members of the community, parents and a well versed Teacher
Librarian. Many challenges and opportunities will arise particularly with staff
members that I have expressed throughout my blog (Edwards, 2015b; Edwards,
2015c; Edwards, 2015d). Teacher awareness as well as professional development
are key aspects that a TL could undertake to aid the development of the schools
DLE. A TL needs to model best practices for teachers to follow providing
evidence of how to demonstrate safe and ethical DC qualities. TL’s need to
guide teachers from information consumers to information creators and curators,
collaborating with other staff members in their PLN to aid the development of a
school’s DLE. This is a task that I will need to address as I commented in my
blog post (Edwards, 2015e) that my current DLE mainly consisted of consumption other than this blog,
as I do not use social media due to my limited understanding of privacy
features and my limited knowledge of the power of social media and its ability
for teachers to utilise Web 2.0 tools to develop content that is relevant and
significant to students bringing local, national and global issues into the
classroom.
The challenges of
teaching DC and implementing a schools DLE such as the complexities of
educational institutions, changing technologies, changing employment opportunities, terms
of services, privacy policy, age limits, training and professional development,
policy development, infrastructure, funding, leadership, implementation, just
to name a few, are challenges that I am willing to endure as an aspiring TL to
help students become effective 21st century digital citizens.
Reference:
ACMA (2013). We like, we post, we share the online lives of Young Australians. Retrieved
from
Coleman,
C (2015, April 6). How do we protect our digital legacy after death? BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32151999
Edwards,
S. (2015a, March 13). ETL 523 Digital Citizenship 1.1 [Web blog post].
Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-digital-citizenship-11.html
Edwards,
S. (2015b, March 13). ETL 523 DC 1.2 [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-dc-12.html
Edwards,
S. (2015c, March 19). ETL 523 Module 1 DC [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-module-1-dc.html
Edwards,
S. (2015d, April 1). Module 2 Curation [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/module-2-curation_1.html
Edwards,
S. (2015e, April 1). ETL 523 Module 3 DLE [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/etl523-module-3-dle.html
Edwards,
M. (2015). Identity theft: More than
770,000 Australians victims in past year. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/identity-theft-hits-australians-veda/6390570
Fullerton,
T. (Presenter) & Sammartino, S (Guest). (2015, April 27). Episode 36
[Television series episode] The Business
Series. Australia: ABC Television. Retrieved from http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/business/NU1504H036S00
International Society for Technology in Education.
(2015). ISTE Standards. Retrieved
from http://www.iste.org/standards
Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2012). Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: Move to global collaboration one step at a time. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Chapter 5: Citizenship.
NSW
Department of Education & Communities (n.d.). Key DER-NSW domains and
themes of digital citizenship. Retrieved from http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/LRRView/13774/documents/Digital_Citizenship_briefing.pdf
Ribble,
M. (2015). Digital citizenship: Using technology appropriately.
Retrieved from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.htm
Stavert,
B. (2010). One-to-One Computers in Schools. Sydney: Department of
Education and Training NSW
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