Feb. 21: Digital Citizenship

Last week a small but enthusiastic group of island educators met to learn more about digital citizenship. In Ontario, it is a topic many of us have heard of, but we have had little - if any - direction as to how to implement digital citizenship topics into our classes.

Kristen Mattson (@mrskmattson; Naperville, Illinois) was our guest speaker. In her role as a Professional Learning Specialist, she supports PK-12th grade teachers by designing and developing effective professional learning opportunities. Her passion for Instructional Technology led her to pursue a Master's Degree in Instructional Design and Technology, and she is currently researching Digital Citizenship Education for her doctoral dissertation. She joined us via Google Hangout.

Her presentation "Digital Citizenship - Moving Beyond Internet Safety," started by introducing us to the different levels of citizenship (personally responsible, participatory, and justice oriented) and how those extend to citizenship online.

We looked at some of the most recent publications on our new "digital reality," and how being constantly connected impacts all of us (society in general, but particularly our students). 

Supposedly, we are becoming a more narcissistic society.
In other news, here's a selfie at the session!

There was a lot of back and forth discussion as we were just as interested in hearing about Kristen's research and resources, as she was in hearing about our classroom and Guidance experiences. 

For me personally, one of the biggest take-aways was how there is a mentorship gap when it comes to building an online presence. What can we do, as adults (as role models!) to demonstrate how to behave online, or how to harness the power of global connectivity and make a difference in the world? I find this to be an especially tricky topic in a time where we, as teachers, are cautioned to not engage in ANY public online communication with students.

Toward the end of the presentation, Kristen introduced us to many great resources, both to address the topic of digital citizenship in the classroom, and also to learn more about the potential impact of good digital citizenship through online projects. One of the lenses in which to focus the idea of good citizenship is to look at shifting away from purely "self-serving" uses of technology and look more toward modelling connectivity and collaboration.

Traditionally, after our guest speaker's presentation, we take time to explore resources and tools, reserving the last hour or so of the session for discussion, implementation, and collaboration. And while we had good intentions of doing just that, the group quickly turned to pure discussion, and continued until our time was up! 

In between bites of brunch, we talked about how digital citizenship can be introduced into the citizenship unit in the grade 10 Civics/Careers course, how to best model being online, reducing anxiety of students when it comes creating digital resources, and whether digital citizenship is best taught through a top-down or bottom-up approach.

Conversations like the one we had remind me that when you bring together educators who are passionate about a given topic, it leads to some tremendous discussion and a wealth of ideas on how to start making a difference in our classrooms. We all came away from the session both with lots of ideas to still process, but also a more clear idea on how to get started with our own students.

A Storify Twitter archive of the day's session can be found here, and our list of great digital citizenship resources can be found here.

For more information on Manitoulin IGNITEd sessions, check out other entries in this blog, or follow us on Twitter at @ManIGNITEd.

Reflections on Global Collaboration

We seem to be two-for-two when it comes to scheduling IGNITEd sessions on days when the weather makes the roads treacherous. Our first session, on design learning and the maker movement, saw several participants unable to make it due to highway closures. Our second session this past weekend on global collaboration only had 4 of the 12 registered participants gather in Little Current after a night of freezing rain.

But instead of hampering the organizers' efforts, this actually served to demonstrate just how powerful collaboration across the miles can be. Six participants were able to join the Adobe Connect room our guests had set up and still participate in real time. We asked questions on behalf of others, linked up via Connect, Twitter, GHO and GoogleDocs, and all managed to be inspired by our guests and their experiences.

Mali Bickley and Jaclyn Calder (@jaccalder) joined us remotely from Newmarket and Penetanguishene respectively, to speak with us about the benefits and possibilities when it comes to engaging students in social justice, and working with other students around the world. Mali, one of two co-ordinators for iEARN Canada, started us off with a quote by Jennifer Corriero, co-founder of Taking it Global:

"I wonder... if young people were actively engaged in all aspects of society, and thought of themselves as community leaders, problem-solvers, role models, mentors and key "stakeholders"... how would the world change?"

How exactly would the world change?
We heard wonderful stories of students who started an Earthwatchers project - collaborating with other students to monitor an assigned plot of rain forest land for clear-cutting activity - in science class, but continued monitoring their land long after they had finished the course.

We heard of students who started reading ingredient lists and refusing to buy (and forcing their parents to not buy) products that contained ingredients that were not sustainably harvested.

We heard of students who began speaking out against war - not because "war is bad" but because they learned first hand through discussions with other students about the effects of war on their schools, homes and families.

And we learned that connecting our students with other classes around the world can be as traditional  as exchanging letters (or books or artefacts), or as 21st Century as sending GarageBand files back and forth to compose truly international music or teach students how to speak English over a Google Hangout.

With the digital tools at our disposal, and access to organizations like Flat Connections and iEARN, the connection part becomes easy, while the content of our collaboration can suit whatever needs we have for our various classes. How amazing is it that we can take our students around the world and have them make a difference in another student's life!!

It is often easy to always look elsewhere for experts in the field, but we should never forget about the wealth of experience local colleagues can also share. We were fortunate to have two teachers with us who could tell us more about Skype in the Classroom and the Flat Connections projects (as well as their pros and cons), and share their resources with us.

Regardless of the amount of global collaboration experience each participant had prior to this session, I know that each of us came away with not only a new idea or two to try, but also the excitement that comes from working/planning/discussing with enthusiastic colleagues. Thank you Mali and Jaclyn, and all our participants for making this another great IGNITEd session!