Tag Archives: digital citizenship

Engaging Parents in the Learning Process

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by bestlibrarian

“The role of parents in the education of their children cannot be overestimated.” ~Unknown

When you ask parents from any country in the world, what they ask their children at the end of the day about school, their question is very similar:

“What did you learn today?”

The disconcerting thing is that the answer is almost always exactly the same.

“Nothing.”

With some of the work that we are doing in Parkland School Division, we are really trying to engage parents in the learning of their child by opening the door into the classroom.  Through the use of blogs, twitter, and other social media outlets, the question can change to something similar to, “I saw that you were learning about (blank) today; can you tell me more about it?”

Different questions usually get different responses.  Improve the question and you are more likely to get a better answer.

Parent Participation vs Parent Engagement

Although the more parents can have a positive presence in our schools, the more they will build relationships within the school community, engagement is something different.  Children are shown to have a much better chance at success if their parent is actively engaged and reinforces the learning that is happening in the school.  Case in point; if you want to improve your child’s reading, read to them at a young age and model what you want to see.

Yet as students get older, many parents are uncertain about the learning that is happening and feel uncomfortable with the content.  The benefit of a lot of learning in our schools today is that it is not solely focused on learning content, but skills and process which are important aspects in a learner’s development.  Being able to engage in the process with your child, like reading, will help improve their learning.  That type of engagement brings learning to a different level in the home.

Are we becoming illiterate?

One of the most influential articles that I have read was by Will Richardson on the notion of expanding literacy. In it, Will discusses The National Council of Teachers of English definition of “21st Century Literacies”, and how many adults, not just kids, are becoming or illiterate.  For many, the notion of literacy boils down to reading and writing, yet it is much more.

“Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups.” NCTE

So with that in mind, what are parents doing at home?  Are they creating websites with their children, assessing what is good and bad information, creating videos and podcasts, and so on?  The majority of our students see the Internet as a place of consumption, not creation.  We need to shift that focus.

Mitch Resnick challenged this notion of consumption when he stated:

“We wouldn’t consider someone literate if they could read but couldn’t write. Are we literate if we consume content online, but don’t produce?”

Based on this ever-changing definition, we have to ask, “Are we literate?”

Keeping Kids Safe

People are quick to jump on using these new types of technologies as either “dumbing down” education (David Crystal’s research shows that reading and writing improve through the use of mobile devices as opposed to the other way around) or that kids will be unsafe.   The reality is that schools in partnership with parents, need to guide children to not only be safe, but to leverage these technologies so that children will have opportunities that we did not.

Carlene Oleksyn, a parent and pharmacist, has immersed herself in the use of social media, not only for the benefit of her own learning, but to ensure that she safely guides her children.  In a recent post on her blog titled, “The Talk”, she shares a conversation that she has with her children:

It started like this:

“Boys, when I need to hire someone do you know what one of the first things is I do?”

Nope, they had no idea.

“I google them,” I said. “I see what they post on Facebook, Twitter, blogs. If they have posted anything that is calling someone else down, is sexually inappropriate, or if they’ve made blatantly disrespectful comments on other people’s postings, I would tend not to hire that person.”

The difference between Carlene and many is not this talk, but it is the credibility that Carlene has from immersing herself in using these technologies herself.  By having a Twitter account, blog, amongst  other things, she has learned how to keep safe by stepping out and looking around first, as opposed to simply letting her kids run wild when they reach the age they are allowed to use social media based on a company’s terms of service.

From her experience, she is able to give some very relevant advice:

I think as parents we need to do three things for our kids:

  • Be aware of what our children are doing on the internet

  • Be on sites with them and teach as they go.

  • Be examples with our own digital identity.

Carlene understands that the world is changing, so she is taking advantage of the learning that can be done while helping her children navigate some murky waters to find a much more positive place.  She is setting a high standard for her kids not only through her words, but through her actions.

Concluding Thoughts

Kids existing online is not enough.  Many schools talk about the notion of “digital citizenship” but simply being a “citizen” is not the heights we should be aiming for offline, so why is it online?

Through my work, I have tried to focus on the idea of “Digital Leadership”; the notion of using the technologies that we have to make a positive difference in the lives of others.  I try to model this simply by writing this post and trying to build more awareness of the opportunities that technology affords parents and children in learning.  Some kids are doing amazing things.

Millgrove School was recently highlighted on Global TV for their work on trying to use social media for learning, but by doing good for their community and hoping to inspire others around the globe.  Isn’t that the standard we should be aiming for as school communities?

To be successful, educators do not only need the support of parents, we need their engagement.  The door is opening more every day to your child’s classroom.  Are you ready to step through?

See No Evil?

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by daveynin

I had the question yesterday from an IT Director (one that I have been asked several times) about the “issues” that happen when you open up social media in schools.  He told me about a principal that said that they continuously deal with issues because of Facebook, Twitter, etc. (remember…the sites are not the issue but the behaviour) and the principal said that it would be easier if they shut it down.  He then asked me how I would deal with it.

The first thing that popped into my head was this video of kids that aren’t any good at playing hide and seek:

This video really made me think that many believe if we close our eyes, nothing bad is happening.

Wrong.

In fact, if we shut down social media in schools, we are less likely to teach our kids how to use that sites safely and effectively, and students are more likely to make mistakes.  Isn’t education the main way we solve problems in our society or are we adopting “ignoring stuff” as the new solution?

Recently, I did an interview on this very topic and the host said that my logic on this topic was similar to getting kids to drink with parents at home.

Really?

When the adults in the room say things like this, it first of all terrifies me, and then makes me realize they have not seen the positive impact that social media can make on their lives and the lives of others.  I was so glad to see that Global Television recently wrote an article and shared a video on the work we are doing in PSD70, and more specifically, the classroom of Kelli Holden and her grade 4 students, to inform the public that there are a lot of positives that can come from the effective use of social media.

With anything, there is good and bad.  Ignoring teaching our kids about this medium is not going to help them in any way to see the positives and we can’t just say, “not our problem” anymore.  If we only teach the curriculum to our kids, we have failed.  It is imperative that we work with our students to be people that follow their passions, be positive citizens, and make a difference in their world now, not the world we lived in as kids.

Thanks to Emily Mertz for doing a wonderful story on our teachers and students at PSD70! Check out the video below if you are interested in seeing what our teachers are doing to make a difference.

Digital Leadership Defined

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When I looked up the term “digital citizenship”, the first definition that I found was the following:

…teaching users the rules of good citizenship online; this usually includes email ettiquette, protecting private information, staying safe online, and how to deal with bullying, whether you’re a target or a bystander.

For the past couple of years, I have been really focusing on the notion of digital leadership, and although I have not seen a formal definition of what that would mean, I would like to think of it as this:

Using the vast reach of technology (especially the use of social media) to improve the lives, well-being, and circumstances of others.

I have written about students such as Martha Payne before, as well as teachers who work to empower the voice of their students.  Yesterday though, I saw another great example of how a student is making a difference in the lives of his peers.  In our schools, it is understandable that we work towards (as a minimum) students understanding the notion of digital citizenship, but how often do we stop there?

We really need to push our students to make a change in their world and highlight how social media can give them an opportunity that we never were given as students.  Just being “citizens” online is the average; kids already exist online.  We should be pushing for much more than this.  Hopefully the video below can serve as an example and conversation starter for what a person can really do now to make a difference.

Personal and Professional vs. Public and Private

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

During my time over in Australia, there was a lot of talk about the notion of having both a “personal” and “professional” identity on social media. The “personal” account would be one that is used with friends and family, where as the “professional” account would be one that is used with the work that you do in school.  Although I understand the notion behind what is being said here, I don’t know if this is what I would really be focusing on when working with students or educators.  We should really be focusing on the notion of “public and private” and how that works in our world.

This is not to say that you can’t have separate accounts.  I, for one, choose not to and blur the lines between personal and professional all the time.  For example, on my Facebook account, I have “friends” that are both people that I have grown up with as well as educators I learn from.  On Twitter,  I follow educators as well as celebrities.  What I am always aware of is that no matter who sees what I put out there, anyone can see it eventually, whether if it is through me or someone else.  I don’t “friend” students or their parents on Facebook, but I have no issue of them following me on Twitter, since that is totally open and anyone can see what is up there whether they have a Twitter account or not.

For example. let’s say a student wrote about how much they hated another student and started bullying them online.  Does it matter if the student said, “well this is my personal account”?  Even if the student wrote it in a “private” email, it can become public with a quick screen capture and shared with the world.  To me, anything that is posted online, you should consider “public” no matter what your “privacy” settings are.

Take this recent article from the Huffington Post regarding teachers being reprimanded for some of the things that they posted online after the US election.  Here is one of the statuses posted that got a teacher into trouble:

“Congrats Obama. As one of my students sang down the hallway, ‘We get to keep our fooood stamps’…which I pay for because they can’t budget their money…and really, neither can you.”

Do you think that it would matter if this is a personal or professional account?

What about the Natalie Munroe situation last year?  She actually tried to defend some of the extremely innappropriate things that she had said about students and parents:

Following the suspension, Munroe defended her online postings by writing on her blog that she had tried to remain as anonymous as possible (blogging under the name Natalie M.) and noted that she never mentioned her school or students by name. “I had 9 followers–2 of whom were my husband and myself, the other 7 were friends,” she wrote. “There’s this perception that I was trying to lambaste everyone in the school without heed. That’s bollocks. What bothers me so much about this situation is that what I wrote is being taken out of context. Of my 84 blogs, 60 of them had absolutely nothing to do with school or work.”

I am sure that every educator (and person for that matter) has said something inappropriate, but posting it online is probably not the smartest option.

Although the “Personal and Professional vs. Public and Private” is an important conversation, there are others ones that we should be having as well. I have been challenged before how kids and adults should stay offline totally as they will do nothing but cause issues for themselves in the future and I am reminded of this Bud Hunt quote:

“Do you ever want to say to folks who scream they don’t want their private lives online: ‘Maybe you should just try to be a better person.’?”

As I said before, you are more than welcome to have both but be fully aware of the consequences professionally that can happen from a “personal” account. I really think we should be talking to our kids about what stays offline (private) and what should be public, no matter who they are talking to online.  Also, is it really bad if we mix some of our personality into a “professional” account?  If we are thoughtful about it, could this not help our students and school community as see as more than simply “teachers” but as people?  The best teachers that I know always connect with students on some personal level, but they always keep it appropriate.  Is that not the rule of thumb that we could use online?

It is not that we can’t be ourselves online, but we should just be more cognizant of what we do there. Many of us, including myself, talk differently when we are around our closest friends and family.  I know that what you post online can take opportunities away from you, it could also provide opportunities as well.  I use the example often in workshops of two people applying for a job as a mechanic and one person writes on a resume that they can do an oil change, while another candidate posts a video on YouTube of them doing an oil change. Who would you hire?  In most cases, the one that has put their learning public and you know they can do the job (it still has to be good work), are at an advantage.  There are definitely some things that you want public. Seth Godin shares his belief and how we should put our best work online:

“Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.”

The “blur” in our world is ironically becoming clearer to me.  Personal or professional is not necessarily the conversation we should be having as much anymore with our students and each other.  What we make “public” is something we need to be taking more into consideration.

Denying Our World

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cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by swanksalot

This is a true story and I will do my best to tell it from my memory…

Presenting to a group of staff and students in an Australian school, with them all in the same room (which was something that I think we should do a lot more of!), I talked about the notion of “Digital Footprint”.  In this talk, I shared some of the negatives of being online, but also discussing the huge potential you can have by understanding your own digital footprint and leveraging it as well.

I was actually quite surprised when one of the teachers had stated in front of the students that she would never go on Facebook because she would “lose her job” because of all the stuff (she actually didn’t say “stuff” but another ‘s’ word in front of the kids…wow) she didn’t want others to see in her personal life.  As I challenged her on this statement that simply being online does not mean you will lose your job, she backed off but you could see she still did not see that being online in any way could be a good thing for our students, even if they are properly guided.

#yikes

Then I said, “Okay, how many students in here are going to go offline because of what I shared with you today?”

Not one hand raised.

Then I asked, “How many students in here are going to rethink how they do stuff online because of what I shared today?”

Almost every single hand went up in the room.

#missionaccomplished

As much as many would like it to happen, the Internet is not going away.  In fact, being active and social online is only going to grow.  Are we educating our kids to understand both the positives and negatives?  And…are we talking from experience or from what we see on TV or read in a newspaper?

I am going to keep doing my best to prepare our kids not only for their future, but for their present.

It reminds of a powerful statement I heard from Gary Stager:

Less Us. More Them

We can’t continue to deny the world we live in.

(If you are interested, here is a google doc I created to work on with others regarding their “Digital Footprint”.  Please feel free to use to work with your staff and your students.)

The Space

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Closing slide for the Digital Citizenship Symposium

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by gcouros

After spending the day with students in Calgary at the Digital Citizenship Symposium, I was invigorated by working with students and discussing the impact that they can have on the world’s entire future.  Alec and I (we co-keynoted the event) talked about some of the implications of their actions on the Internet and how they have three directions for the impact that they will make in the world: negative, neutral, or  positive.  Instead of the idea of sharing horror stories of what can happen on the Internet, we wanted to show the students that as long as they can stay safe, they can have a huge (positive) impact on the world.  We shared examples of people using social media to improve the world (such as the “Free the Children” organization) and challenged them to try to do something “big” to better their world.

This quote from the “Butterfly Effect” shares what we are able to do with social networking tools to better our world:

“Although social networking tools are widely used to incite action, the people who have used them most effectively have one thing in common: a laser-like focus….citizens rallying against guerrillas, a once-voiceless population protesting for women’s rights—each started small, with a few people and a goal.”  Smith and Aaker, The Dragonfly Effect

Inadvertently, as Alec and I finished off the presentation last night, we had left the last slide blank with only a white background.  As we talked, we thought that this was the way we wanted to end the presentation with the students.  Often when presenting, we work to leave participants with a final, lingering quote that we hope will inspire action.  The thought here was that the inspiration for the last slide needs to come from our kids in what they do moving forward.  Too often we work to inspire our students when really, we need to give them the space to let them inspire us.  I challenged them to be the inspiration for us and help us eventually fill that last slide by doing something amazing and powerful.

How often do we give our students this opportunity in the classroom?  How often do we push our students to lead and make a difference but not give them the space to make it happen?  I asked the students how many have them felt that they were referred to as “just kids” and several hands (along with visibly bothered looks) raised immediately.  I believe the more we trust in our students, the more likely they are too succeed.

Before the last slide, we watched this video from “Pay it Forward”, and as I sat there viewing it, the thing that hit me was that the amazing project that happened in the movie (I know it is “just” a movie…) was not done by the teacher, but by the student.  The teacher just gave them the opportunity.

Let’s figure out how we can give our students the space to inspire.  I am looking forward to seeing how those students fill that page.

Below is the slideshare from our our closing keynote if you are interested in looking at the slides.

 

Digital Citizenship Symposium (Closing)

…the person behind the tool

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Chatroulette  has been considered (and rightfully so) a website that has really no redeeming qualities.  You are more likely to see something inappropriate on that site then not.  There is nothing that could be taken from this site that would be beneficial to students in schools (other than what NOT to do).

As Chatroulette has been blasted in the media for in being inappropriate, I was surprised to come across this video that made me smile:

When we look at all of the bad things that happen on websites, we have to always remember that it is not the tool that is causing the problem, but the person behind it.  They choose the inappropriate behaviour  and that should always be addressed.  Although the above video is was probably meant to bring fame to the group singing, the message is sweet and has brought a smile to probably over a million people.  That is a good thing.

Let’s make sure we also talk about the person and the behaviour before we talk about the tool.

Parents as School Leaders

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cc licensed flickr photo shared by Victor Bezrukov

On my way out of the office the other night, I noticed that my brother tweeted there was an Elluminate session on Digital Citizenship that he was moderating.  I decided to check it out and was planning to write a blog post about it after the session.

Noticing that one of our school parents was on Twitter (yes, we have parents from my school active on Twitter!), I encouraged her to check out what an Elluminate session was like.  Kim decided to check it out, and knowing that I asked her, I  messaged her on Twitter and asked her what she thought to which she replied, “it is amazing!”.  I then encouraged her to write a blog post about the session and was amazed and inspired by her writing on the topic.

Here are some of the things that she wrote (read the whole post here and I encourage you to comment):

  • Although I was once leery of having laptops etc.. available to my children in elementary school, I have become somewhat of an advocate for our children to have whatever tools they need to broaden their horizons. By allowing our children to experience the wide range of diversity in the world they will be far better equipped to make solid choices that make them who and what they are.
  • The more questions our children ask and the more information we can give them, the better their critical thinking skills will be.
  • Monkey see-monkey do is what our children learn from so therefore we must have a good digital footprint in order to teach our children to have one as well.

I was so impressed at what Kim wrote on this topic.  She has always shown her intelligence to our school community but she did not even know of the world of blogging and twitter until the last few months.  She was willing to jump in and learn though. The whole reason that she became involved was that she knew it was essential to understand the world her children were going to become a part of.  She decided that knowledge is power, so she would leverage this to the advantage of her children.  Amazing how in such a short time, she has shown such an incredible understanding of social media and how it can benefit the learning of her own children.

In one of her replies to a comment, she summarized one of my major beliefs on social media in schools:

If more people educated themselves the fear would not be there.

We are blessed to be in a school community with parents that are not only willing to get involved in social media for the benefit of their kids and are open to learning from other educators, but are now using their voice to be advocates for the future of their children!  I appreciated how this parent listened to the knowledge of others, reflected upon it, and then connected her thoughts and shared them with the world. The learning process Kim openly displayed is something that we want for our students.  What an incredible role model to not only her children, but our entire school community!

Working with parents who are willing to not only learn and grow, but also reflect and openly share their learning process with our school community, only helps us to create greater opportunities for our students. There is so much we as educators  can learn from our parent voices.  It is amazing to envision the future of education if parents, students, and staff are willing to grow together as a true learning community.  The possibilities for our kids would be endless!

The Example We Set

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cc licensed flickr photo by scion_cho: http://flickr.com/photos/scion02b/2843059068/

I have been biting my tongue.  I have seen too much of it on Twitter and through social media in teacher blogs that going into a new year, I want to be able to say I at least said something. Many times we go past the line of constructive criticism and are comments are disrespectful.

For example, I recently saw a tweet that referred to another teacher’s blog post as “crap” (they did not use the term crap).  This was made by another educator on Twitter.  If we saw a student do that to another, would we think that is appropriate.  Granted, I did not agree with the article, but if we are truly are on here to “learn”, comments like that mean nothing.  If we are to push education further, a comment left discussing alternatives to the ideas used and how their could be a better way would have been more helpful.  Not only would they have been more helpful to the author for reflection, but also to the one commenting.  Sharing our understanding with others, helps our own learning (is that not what we always tell our students?).

I could have easily linked the twitter comment on this post, but would I be any better “outing” someone on my blog than the person that made the comment.  Our code of conduct within our union says that if we have a problem with another educator, we talk to them directly.  I do not think it would go over well with my staff if I publicly ridiculed the ideas of others.  Is this not amplified on the Internet?  The thing I do know about comments such as this actually make the person who made the comment look worse than the people they are publicly ridiculing. Karma remembers.

I remember getting ready to present at the Reform Symposium thinking about the ISTE presentation and watching the Twitter feed of the opening keynote.  At the time I did not think much of it, but I remember it being quite harsh.  Then came my presentation.  Although the feedback was very positive on the Internet, I remember being terrified before and after the presentation going back and looking through the tweets.  What if this was a student giving a presentation that bombed?  Would it be acceptable to harshly criticize in a public forum during the presentation when the child has no chance to respond?  Like our students, we all have parents, family, and friends.  We all have people that care about us and we would feel embarrassed in front of with these comments.

I have been in conversations with my brother Dr. Alec Couros regarding this and how being an “echo chamber” is not helpful either.  I 100% agree with this as well.  Ideas need to be challenged in a respectful manner, just as we (should) teach our students.  This is where real learning comes from.  The whole reason that we are moving towards blogfolios for our students is so that they have the chance to share ideas and thoughts with one another.  What would be your expectation for your students?  Do we have the same expectation for ourselves?

As educators, we are the role models of behaviour so it is important that we act the way our students expect to act.  In an article that was shared with my by Sarah Edson entitled, “There’s Only One Way To Stop A Bully”, it states:

…our research on child development makes it clear that there is only one way to truly combat bullying. As an essential part of the school curriculum, we have to teach children how to be good to one another, how to cooperate, how to defend someone who is being picked on and how to stand up for what is right.

If we are treating one another in a defamatory way, are we really the ones to teach this etiquette to our students?

While I am in the process of working with my staff to use more social media themselves, how reluctant will they be if they know that they can be harshly criticized in 140 characters or less?  This will cause a huge challenge to the reluctant user if they find themselves in this situation.

Some of my own personal rules for my presence on the Internet include not harshly criticizing anyone on Twitter.  Yes there are those instances where my love for Wham and wearing capris are made fun of on Twitter but that is not what I am talking about.  I am talking about saying another educator’s post is terrible on Twitter.  I publicly praise articles, but I know that any tweet I send out could be misconstrued so I am cognizant of this.  I try to treat all educators, no matter where they are from, that they are in my own school union, and treat them with the same code of ethics that I would follow there.

Yes if you are posting your ideas in blogs such as this, they should be open to constructive criticism.  I consider that part of the reason I choose to share these ideas in the forum I do.

To the teacher that I watched get so harshly criticized, I apologize for not saying anything to the fellow educator (privately) at the time or even sharing my thoughts on your post. At that moment, I was really no better then the person who was so publicly criticizing you.  We often learn from our mistakes and I promise I will do my best to learn from this one.