DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

  In this lesson digital citizenship which is component of digital literacy, I have learnt that digital citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. Digital citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.

There has been a lot of online collaboration in this lesson including wiki collaboration. And the benefits of collaboration has continued to be manifested.

So online collaboration, like most digital phenomena, is good at solving very specific kinds of problems: time problems, distance problems and communication problems. By solving time problems it creates the benefit of 24/7 production cycles; by solving distance problems it enables newly diverse teams; and by solving communication problems it lets us work together in ways that tap into a broader set of skills and capacities. When we use online collaboration to support tasks and projects that specifically leverage these distinctive benefits, we go beyond treating online collaboration as a Band-Aid for the problem of dispersed teams and use it to actually move our work.

However online collaboration has some challenges among which include

1. Poor attitude by some of the members in the collaboration, to collaborate.
2. Having different work schedules.
3. Technology related problems like, luck of internet connections, electricity and computers. This is still a problem in our country and they are very expensive.

Now since Digital citizenship involves users knowing how to use technology appropriately.

I have curated some resources that I feel can be of good help to me and my students when using technology mainly surfing online.

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

Helpful advice and tools you can use to help keep your child safe whenever and wherever they go online

http://www.safekids.com/

Contains information about the dangers of children using the internet. Rules, advice, and tips relating to child security and the web.

http://www.netsmartz.org/InternetSafety

This site gives tips on how to deal with with challenges of online which include ;

•                                  Cyberbullying
•                                Exposure to inappropriate material
•                                                          Online predators
•                                                          Revealing too much personal information 

http://www.netsmartz.org/InternetSafety
This site is an interactive, educational program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) that provides age-appropriate resources to help teach children how to be safer on- and offline.

http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/publications/safeonline/
This website has different guidelines on how you can be safe online. This guide includes tips for people with learning disabilities on how to stay safe in social media and online.

These resources I plan to guide students to look critically at these sites and take note of how they can keep safe on the internet.

They need to appreciate the fact that when online they have to be able to know

·         How to look for information

·         How to filter the information

·         Evaluate it and use it accordingly. 

SEARCH SKILLS (SL) AND INFORMATION LITERCY INTEGRATION (IL).

I have gained a lot of knowledge under digital literacy and have come to realize that when it comes to technology integration in education. It is not just a matter of using computers in the teaching.

And having realized the importance of search skills, I plan to help my learners develop the following search skills.

1. Check the Sources

Evaluating information found in your sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, and appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context.

As a class, discuss the benchmarks for evaluating a website: currency (Is the information up to date?), security (Does the site ask for too much personal information or prompt virus warnings?), scope (Is the information in-depth?), and authority (Does the information come from a trusted expert?). Challenge partners to find one site that meets these benchmarks and one site that fails to do so. During research projects, encourage students to check the benchmarks off a list for each of the sources they use.
 

2. Ask Good Questions

Developing and refining search queries to get better research results.

Give small groups three search terms each, ranging from the general to the specific.

3. Go beyond the Surface

Displaying persistence by continuing to pursue information to gain
a broad perspective. Invite students to create fact trees about whatever they are researching. The starting question is the root of the tree. 

4. Be Patient

Displaying emotional resilience by persisting in information searching despite challenges. Challenge teams to come up with a well-researched answer to a question that isn’t “Google-able.”.

5. Respect Ownership

Respecting intellectual property rights of creators and producers. By inviting students to write about what it would feel like to get a record deal, star in a movie, or have a book published. As a class, discuss the emotions involved. 

6. Use Your Networks

Using social networks and information tools to gather and share information. Talk to students about when you might use social sites for research.

What is information literacy and how I plan to integrate it in my teaching?

Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner.

 Being able to access and manage information competently is a vital twenty-first-century survival skill. The current information landscape is constantly changing, with internet searches now commonplace, the move to user-generated content such as blogs and wikis, and the widespread use of social networking tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Many people today – our current and future students – are confident in using technology, and in generating their own content. However, this also raises skills issues:

From the experience I have gone through so far in Digital literacy with IL I feel my students should have the following skills:

v Understand the information landscape.

v Plan and carry out a search.

v Critically evaluate information.

v Manage and communicate your results.

 I therefore plan to integrate information literacy in my teaching by helping my students to;

1.     Formulate questions for research based on information gaps or on re-examination of existing, possibly conflicting, information;

2.     Determine an appropriate scope of investigation;

3.     Deal with complex research by breaking complex questions into simple ones, limiting the scope of investigations;

4.     Use various research methods, based on need, circumstance, and type of inquiry;

5.     Monitor gathered information and assess for gaps or weaknesses;

6.     Organize information in meaningful ways;

7.     Synthesize ideas gathered from multiple sources;

8.     Draw reasonable conclusions based on the analysis and interpretation of information.

We’ve got to give people the skills to be able to make their mind up themselves.

MEDIA LITERACY AND IT'S IMPORTANCE

Media literacy involves not only knowledge but also critical thinking, linguistic, visual and film literacy. Media communication has become quite a force in society today, allowing for consumption of loads of information. And today's digital consumers are masters of media multitasking, which involves simultaneous contact with two or more other forms of media. As consumers of media, it is important to have the ability to understand, translate and use the information we receive.

Decoding Media

Now that we know what media literacy is and how it is ingrained into our lives, let's talk about how we, as the consumers, can decipher all the messages being sent our way. There are five key questions to ask of any media:

1.   Who created the message that is being sent?

2.   What techniques were used to attract my attention?

3.   How might other people understand or interpret this message differently from me?

4.   Are there any lifestyles, values or points of view that are not represented or are omitted from this message?

5.   Why was this message sent?

Media literacy requires questioning and inquiry in order to interpret the message

By asking these 5 simple questions, you have empowered yourself with media literacy! If you have the necessary awareness of the media, you can analyze the media, reflect on the media, and then take action... if you decide.

Why Is Media Literacy Important?

1   By focusing on process skills rather than content knowledge, students gain the ability to analyze any message in any media and thus are empowered for living all their lives in a media-saturated culture.

2.   Meets the needs of students to be wise consumers of media, managers of information and responsible producers of their ideas using the powerful multimedia tools of a global media culture.

3.   Engages students. . . bringing the world of media into the classroom connects learning with "real life" and validates their media culture as a rich environment for learning.

4.   Gives students and teachers alike a common approach to critical thinking that, when internalized, becomes second nature for life.

5.   Increases the ability and proficiency of students to communicate (express) and disseminate their thoughts and ideas in a wide (and growing) range of print and electronic media forms - and even international venues.

6.   Media literacy's "inquiry process" transforms teaching and frees the teacher to learn along with students -- becoming a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage."

Therefore as a teacher in this 21^st century, I am challenged to look at media literacy critically and I plan to equip my students with the skills to be able to use Media profitably.

And I plan to integrate Media literacy in my teaching in the following ways; 

•Encouraging students to follow (and write about) current events. including tracking a single story across diverse media sources.

• By making my own decision-making process transparent by explaining how i assess credibility of sources and why i  choose the media that i use in class.

 • Pointing out ways in which media messages might be interpreted differently by people from different backgrounds or groups.

• Beginning discussions of media “texts” or documents (not only print, but also image- or sound-based “texts”) by asking students what they notice.

• Allowing students to go beyond the curricular issue at hand to identify and comment on incidental aspects of a media message (e.g., the characteristics of the people presenting the material, the techniques used to attract attention, and the ways in which advertising and product messages intrude into other types of media content).

• Fostering communication skills and creativity by encouraging the production of media messages about a topic.

• Being flexible in assignments, allowing students to choose which media formats are the most effective way for them to communicate the required information or complete the required task.

·      Teaching students to routinely ask the kinds of questions that will help them think critically about information presented in media (including the information from their textbooks or the popular media they use at home); see the end of this booklet for sample questions. 

. “In the 21st Century, the century our children will live in — the century they will, in fact, shape — media literacy will not be a luxury; it will be a necessity.”
Linda Ellerbee, journalist, television producer.

"While young people have more access to the internet and other media than any generation in history, they do not necessarily possess the ethics, the intellectual skills, or the predisposition to critically analyze and evaluate their relationship with these technologies or the information they encounter. Good hand/eye co-ordination and the ability to multitask are not substitutes for critical thinking"

MY NEW UNDERSTANDING OF DIGITAL LITERACY

As new technologies and media are used more and more in teaching and learning, as well as in the home and throughout social life, we need to develop more than just ICT skills; we need a broad digital awareness of the wider context in which technologies and media operate to wrap around these skills in order that we can participate in this increasingly digital world.

 Consequently, there have been many recent attempts to define strategies for teaching and learning that take account of our need for skills, knowledge and understanding in the use of new technology and media. Often, this is called ‘digital literacy’.

So, what does ‘digital literacy’ really mean? To possess ‘literacy’ in traditional terms means being able to read and write in the shared language of a culture. Digital literacy shares some similarities. It refers to the reading and writing of digital texts, for example being able to ‘read’ a website by navigating through hyperlinks and ‘writing’ by uploading digital photos to a social networking site. In this sense, digital literacy means the functional skills required to operate and communicate with technology and media. It also refers to the knowledge of how technologies and media affect the world. The internet now makes it possible to look up information on almost any area of human interest in just a few moments. Doing so requires some simple operational skills, but more importantly it requires the ability to be analytical and evaluative about the knowledge that is available on the web.

In fact, what it means to acquire knowledge is now changing significantly.

So digital literacy means knowing how technology and media affect the ways in which we go about finding things out, communicating with one another, and gaining knowledge and understanding. And it also means understanding how technologies and media can shape and influence the ways in which school subjects can be taught and learnt. In a dense landscape of information sources, communication opportunities, and tools for creating new digital objects, teaching and learning cannot be confined to pen and paper activities.

This means that learners and we teachers need to make sense of how technologies can be used within subjects and to understand how such technologies affect what we know about those subjects.

 Therefore digital literacy is an amalgamation of:

Knowledge of digital tools: hardware/software awareness and competence.

Critical skills: evaluation and contextualization.

Social awareness: understanding your identity, collaborating, and communicating to audiences in context.

Knowledge of digital tools: hardware/software awareness and competence.

Operational involves the ability to use a system of language and to read and write in an appropriate and adequate manner in a range of different contexts.

Creative refers to the ability to produce meaningful and engaging content in appropriate formats and for particular audiences.

Collaborative means to communicate, interact and work with others to create shared understandings and meaning.

Find and select: Knowing what information is available and being able to retrieve it.

Life and career skills: Today’s life and work environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous.

I have shared with you my visual representation of how I understand digital literacy.

TECHNOLOGY INFUSED LESSONS

Evaluating one of my previous lessons

I will consider a physics lesson.

The topic was Moment of a force.

The technology tools where; computer, projector.

And students where meant to use slide share to view different presentations on moment of force. And then later they were to create their own notes in PowerPoint and present it to class. And they were to work in groups and collaborate even online, using google drive.

Now looking at the lessons of others online and using the evaluation tool, I feel my lesson somehow fulfilled some of the necessary strengths of a technology enriched lesson, but still it looked. Since learners where worked in groups, this helped them to develop their collaborative skills.

Learners also were to use the technology tools themselves meaning they had hands on activities, this helped them to be creative.

The lesson had activities which could cause the learners to think critically on their own.

However I feel I didn't consider students first evaluating the web information, and this could have led them not to filter the information well.

Also the SAMR levels where not fully integrated in the lesson.

So I Intend to improve on my lessons infused with technology, by consideration the necessary steps, in order to make use of technology. Actually this what digital literacy does for it looks at acquiring functional skills required to operate and communicate with technology and media.

LESSON REVIEWS

What does ‘digital literacy’ really mean?

To possess ‘literacy’ in traditional terms means being able to read and write in the shared language of a culture. Digital literacy shares some similarities. It refers to the reading and writing of digital texts, for example being able to ‘read’ a website by navigating through hyperlinks and ‘writing’ by uploading digital photos to a social networking site. In this sense, digital literacy means the functional skills required to operate and communicate with technology and media. It also refers to the knowledge of how technologies and media affect the world.

Lesson Reviews:

GR 6 -7 Science Electricity. Project.

In this project students were using digital technologies to record their experiences for two very different outputs. One was to support their learning, to enable them to remember successful circuits they had created. The other was to document their learning process for an audience. In further work students could evaluate the technologies they had used, in terms of whether the same technologies were appropriate for each task.

Making the multimedia presentations gave the children the chance to reflect on their learning journey and remember how they had achieved the creation of their Christmas decoration. They also began to develop some audience awareness by having to choose which video and audio clips to include in their presentation. Although the digital technology was not the focus of the learning in this piece of work, the students were clear about the purpose of using the digital cameras and voice recorders to document their learning and their perceived advantages of doing so:

Although the digital technology was not the focus of the learning in this piece of work, the students were clear about the purpose of using the digital cameras and voice recorders to document their learning and their perceived advantages of doing so.

Students developed their group decision-making skills by deciding which pieces of information needed to be recorded. They were also able to comment on their collaboration skills.

So the lesson plan equips learners with the collaborative skills, ability to evaluate web information, it takes into consideration the theory of multiple intelligence. There is moving, taking pictures, creating documents.

Learners were able to comment on each other’s work, this means this lesson put into consideration the SAMR Model and also TPACK.  

Learners are given chance to have hands on activities, which led them to have experiential learning and helped them to also be creative.  

The objectives of the lesson were achieved because the learners were able to make electricity.

Here is the link

http://cctionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/Education_Digital_Society/DSFL_7-Electricity.pdf

I also evaluated the Technology supported lesson, and it was on Web designing.

Content Area Objectives Addressed:  

1.     Research an area of interest (telecommunications model--research) 

2.     Organize information into storyboard or flow chart 

3.     Present information electronically for peers learn and review 

  Technology Objectives Addressed:  

1.     Create a web page, 5-8 pages (presentation software model ---linear) 

2.     Incorporate 2-5 of the multimedia components  

3.     Operated/Observed the use of a projector 

4.     Consulted an expert using a web camera.

In this lesson students, are provided with the technology tools, meaning they were to have hands on activities. Learners were to evaluate different web pages.

Students worked in groups but each was able to do something and this made the learners feel part of the whole process.

The students had knowledge about the, key boarding word processing and internet connections, so the lesson looked at the prior knowledge. Lesson considered TPACK model and SAMR model and it had reached reflection stage.

The lesson was rich in technology and considered different approaches, it helped the learners to know how to present the information.

Here is the link 

http://edtech.boisestate.edu/bridges/Lesson%20Links/Chapman%20web%20design/creating_a_web_page.htm

It promoted collaboration among learners and they were able to integrate technology to accomplish the tasks.  

   

SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION

I have had a good experience with social media and communication, and it has been such interesting to collaborate again using mind map. Also working with my partners has been a building stone in improving my collaboration skills.

Unlike last time where we had to use google drive to collaborate, this time we used mainly emails and phones. And still it worked out only with some few challenges like failing to have a common schedule and sometimes a member taking long to get on board. But it was wonderful still to work to together.

There was an element of how social media and communication is affecting language and below I have some few points to put across.  

Cyber Slang is the popular shorthand language used for easy communication through internet based emails and SMS.

Most people use the cyber slang abbreviations in texting, messaging and writing in social networks. The word Slang means the use of informal words and expressions which are not considered standard in the dialect or standard.

Social media and communication is affecting mainly the younger generation and if we are to deal with them and understand them we need to know their way of communication.

 It has the advantages like

1. It lowers the task of formal speech or writing.

2. The users are familiar with such code words so that it reduces the key strokes.

3. It replaces the conventional synonym.

4. It is a tattoo term used by people of higher status and responsibility.

5. Slangs create novel meanings for the existing words.

 6. It uses least number of characters needed to convey a message.

7. Punctuations, grammar and capitalization etc. can be avoided.

The effect of texting is mainly realised in the grammar it may lead to loss of words permanently with time.

The majority of slang is invented by teenagers. This serves the added purpose of helping them to separate themselves further from their parents' generation, almost as an act of rebellion.

Also many consider users of certain slang as socially and educationally inferior.

It is uncertain whether text messaging has doomed the future of the English language, but one thing is for sure: Students will continue to text.

With Comic strips first of all it was very interesting to create my first ever comic strip and that experience pushes me to look forward for creating more. Yes it has a big potential it  holds for digital pedagogy  because;

·         They are very interesting since they are visual and short representing a big story.

·         Comic strips have a motivating power.

·         There is sequential learning.