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Another great opportunity for the 2016-17 school year has opened up for me! I’m currently taking my 3rd Research Methods & Statistics course, and through my professor, I have been invited to participate in independent (and funded!) research. The opportunity to conduct research as an undergraduate is such an honor, and to have been singled out and personally approached to be one of a 10 student team is even more so! It certainly seems that  I will have a lot on my plate next year, but I could not be more thrilled! I have tackled my own research projects to fulfill class requirements, but those projects aren’t even on the same level as this type of research as far as the experience and learning that will result. Of course, research in and of itself, is not to be revealed until it is published, but I will definitely be chronicling my experiences in a true lab. Needless to say, this will also be a pivotal first glimpse into my own future and what it can be like to work more closely as professor and student over common interests.

Stay tuned for topics and a firsthand account!

MGH. Professor in Training

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The end of my semester has arrived, bringing with it the end of my experience in University 349.

So I’ll be taking this time to reflect on what I’ve learned over the semester and how my ideas on digital citizenship have changed. you When I entered this class, I was more apprehensive about the format than the subject matter, and looking back, my biggest question going in was why this class was only available and targeted to transfer students. I will say this though, I had absolutely no idea just how much there was to digital citizenship when I started studying it in September. My thoughts on it were something like “Well, it just means that there are rules and regulations regarding our lives online just like in our physical lives right? And we should be careful about our interactions, obviously.”

Right now, I can look back at that and laugh because that is exactly the kind of thinking that true proponents for digital citizenship in education are fighting to discourage. Referencing an article by John Waters that we studied a while back called “Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens,” we must remember that students are “producers and managers of information and perspectives.”

While being safe and respectful online are of course important things to do, to teach only that is severely lacking. The possibilities of the online world are limitless and with that knowledge and power, we have to do more than think twice about how a Facebook status might come across. We can use social media to learn about social issues such as the refugee crisis from the refugees themselves. We can directly impact our political system by contacting those in office and addressing our concerns with them, in real time. We can find ourselves a community to belong to when it seems as though those around us don’t have the answers that we are looking for.

And that is what digital citizenship means to me months later: in order to be a good digital citizen, you must use skills like crap detection (know what information and knowledge producers to trust), we have to be active participants in the world-wide conversation (use our resources to be true citizens rather than just interacting with people that we’ve met in person), and we should also be open-minded and willing to think outside of the box (let children and students teach us about what the digital world means to them versus what it means to parents and professors).

After reviewing the challenges posed to us in this class, it’s easy to see how much has changed. My digital footprint, for example, is much better now! Nearly all of the results on the first page of 2 different searches are linked to me thanks to this class and I couldn’t be happier and more grateful for that.

I think one of the concepts that will most stick with me is using social media for purposes other than our personal lives. This class has shown me that lurking doesn’t have to be a bad word, if we’re doing it right! Another thing that I’ve learned how to do better is engaging – we have to use all of our resources, be persistent, and responsible with our knowledge and power in all ways.

This has been an amazing journey and has far exceeded my expectations. I will take what I have learned about new perspectives on research and issues that impact our lives in to every class that I have from here on out. Social media is a relevant resource and I hope to continue sharing that with others. I will also take all of the tools that I now have and not only use them, but keep them sharp, in the face of advances and new information in our ever-changing online world.

Thank you Jill and Michelle, you two have taught me so much and this class has been a unique experience that I hope won’t be unique for long. You two are great and I know your past, current, and future students would agree. Goodbye, #Univ349DC – it’s been real!

MGH, Professor in Training

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I have been part of a course that teaches its students about digital citizenship and how to work in a world that is going under the cyber age. In the beginning of this semester I was very nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought I knew most things about what it meant to be a digital citizen; don’t be a troll and don’t post something you might regret later. I thought that was it and I was very wrong. Back then, what I thought of digital citizenship was  that it meant you were apart of the cyber world and that was it. You had an account and sometimes you would post things and scroll through your feed. That’s all it was to me.

After entering this course, I was bombarded with an array of knowledge. There was a book we had to read called Net Smart by Howard Rheingold, and this book taught me so much about the digital world. First off there’s a thing called crap detection, and I remember the first time I read it I had a real kick out of it. But that was a real concept we had to learn for this class and it was an important concept at that. The book also taught about the importance of communication with others. I thought that this was one of the most important concepts we could have learned as a class. I thought this because in the world that we live in most often times we are silenced because the expression of feelings and thoughts and words can be seen as weak. We live in a world where there is so much pressure to be different that even a colloquialism among youth is being expressed; the term “basic” is now being used. If we live in a world, and we do, in which young people have an air horn to have their voices expressed but have fear of using that medium of communication because of the social repercussions of the day and age; then we are simply doing something wrong.

The idea to communicate, and communicate well, is a lost art. With so many people screaming ideas into our heads and having others tear them apart for having them; it’s no wonder youth may have apprehension from having a voice.

What this book taught us, along with our teachers, was how to communicate. And I take this with a grain of salt because we all communicate, but now we know the abundance at which we communicate when in the cyber world. We understand now that everyone can see it, literally everyone. But with the knowledge of this at hand, we are able to communicate efficiently, responsibly, thoughtfully, and wholeheartedly.

I remember when our teachers first had us engage in the community we were studying I was feeling more then a bit nervous. I was honestly scared of what might happen. I felt this way because I knew about the trolls and had seen them in action and I didn’t want anyone to talk to me like that. But, my teachers advised the class not to talk to those hurtful people and provided a safe place in the classroom so I felt brave enough to engage.

I say this because I no longer have fear to say what I believe or to ask questions to people of my fellow cyber community. I know how to communicate well and am aware of the image I am putting out into the world. I know myself and I know my cyber self. I am not afraid to say what I think or believe and I fear no one who would say anything against me.

This week in #Univ349DC, we go back to basics in a sense and discuss what it means to be a good digital citizen in education. The 13 weeks that have passed since embarking on this journey has increased my knowledge base and level of understanding of digital citizenship, so I hope to have a few more relevant and insightful thoughts than in my earlier posts.

The assignment this week is to compare two evaluations on the involvement of digital citizenship in our education systems: a TED talk featuring the thoughts of Michael Wesch and an article written by John K. Waters after the original airing of Wesch’s TED talk, Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens.

The common themes that I were able to find between the 2 were as follows:

The ubiquitous nature of the internet.

The internet is EVERYWHERE.

Wesch’s thoughts on this aspect were stated as “There’s something in the air – nearly the entire body of human knowledge.”

In Waters’s article, this same point  is made by saying that “the internet transcends physical borders” – our engagement has expanded over time to become an unavoidable aspect of daily life.

The limitations of teaching with technology vs. teaching technology.

Via the link in this bullet point, Wesch finds that we aren’t teaching technology to students, we are using it as a means to end in education rather than respecting it as its own entity that could provide valuable contributions.

Waters’s article sees it as important to remember that students are “producers and managers of information and perspectives,” a concept entirely missing from the curriculum in schools as  evidenced by the following image. 

There is more than the basic safety rules outlined above that we should be teaching students. The article calls for lecturing on “participation in the world-wide conversation” to start.

I personally see this oversight in the educational system as comparable to teaching a student the rules of how to do a math problem without checking for understanding and demonstrating how it can be applied in creative ways to address something bigger.

The responsibility of educators to incorporate digital citizenship into the curriculum.

*This is so important!*

At any level of schooling, the role of an educator is so much more than to teach the basics, they are responsible for sending a student out of their classroom more knowledgeable than when he came in. It is therefore, irresponsible to not teach digital citizenship when it is a constant presence in the lives of all students today.

Wesch simply says that “We can’t live the next 100 years as we have the past 100 years.” As the world changes, so does our knowledge base and platforms and the education of our students should reflect that.

Waters points out via Susan Metros that “we have a responsibility to give them, not only the skills, but the theory and the context to understand the ethical implications of media.”

The ability to foster creativity and growth if used properly.

The possibilities here are endless. The greatest minds of our times could have been even greater with access to the resources that we have now, so that leads me to believe that some of the greatest minds are yet to come. It is important to encourage students.

Waters suggests creating assignments that require the use of 21st century skills as well as the time-hardened skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Wesch seeks to motivate his students to not seek meaning in college, as so may of us are inclined to do, but to create it. “You create yourself, you create the world,” he says.

Piggybacking off of the idea of motivating students, educators can be motivated in return and if the conversation is open, students will contribute ideas. Edward Brazee outlines 5 lessons that he learned from his students about digital citizenship. These lessons were learned in the course of working with students for one year, and he discovered what his students found important. His format of “It’s not (blank), but (blank)” when outlining the views of parents and teachers vs. the views of the children they work with, I found to be spot on. Another point that I didn’t list above but fits better here, is that the internet presents a wide variety of possibilities and perspectives. Brazee learned to not tell students what their perspectives should be, but to engage them in conversation about their own perspectives as well as guide them to other resources.

In conclusion, there is so much work to be done on teaching digital citizenship to our students. But similar to the birds in Wesch’s Aztec story , those of us who know what needs to be done can only make our individual efforts until we inspire others and change the narrative.

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