Creating Digital Citizens

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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