EDTC 6433 Modelling Digital Citizenship

Going into this inquiry about digital citizenship I was initially unsure of where to direct my thinking.  When I started doing my research I came across the article, “Is it Cheating or Learning the Craft of Writing?  Using Turnitin to Help Students Avoid Plagiarism.”  This article is by Lynne Graham-Mathesona and Simon Star.  This article talked about how to use turnitin.com to help students recognize what is plagiarism and what is not.  I am one of the International Baccalaureate math teachers at my school.  In my class students, must write a math internal assessment that is worth 20% of their IB math score.  For their internal assessment, students are expected to write a paper about math.  Students are aware of how to write papers for language arts and history because they do it all the time.  Math however is a completely different story.  In their minds the rules completely change.  Through my inquiry, I have found that turnitin.com can be used to help my students understand what is going to be considered plagiarism and what is not.

As I was reading the articles for class, I found an article titled “The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons.”  This article talked about different sites that could be used and what things to look for when working with copyrights.  It was informative for me.  As a math teacher, the amount of writing I have done in my life pales in comparison to many people.  I am a novice at siting sources just as my students are.  This article gave tips for students and teachers to consider.  I said that the images will tell you if you are allowed to copy the image.  They use, “fancy talk for letting you know that you are free to use anything on this blog as long as you: 1. give an attribution or credit that lets others know where you got the info with a link, 2. won’t profit in any way from using our content and use it for non-business purposes only, and 3. anything you create with our content, you must use the same license.” (Burt, 2012).  After reading this article, as I work with my students on their Internal Assessments for IB, I will make sure to point them to the resources found in this article.  I will be working with my students to use the CreativeCommons.org site to check the images they are using.

Finally as I was looking at my classmates article, my classmate Katie’s article stood out to me.  Her article was titled, “Fostering Digital Citizenship in the Classroom.”  As I said above, coming into this inquiry, I was unsure what exactly digital citizenship meant.  Katie’s article really brought home the meaning behind digital citizenship for me.  Steps were given for helping students become responsible digital citizens:

• “Design a robust digital citizenship curriculum.
• Counsel students that “what goes online stays online.”
• Craft an empowering acceptable use policy for students.
• Teach students their digital rights.
• Advise parents of new social media and online trends.
• Provide an easy-to-understand guide for online behavior.
• Equip teachers and parents with education technology programs and practices to manage students’ internet use.” (Dotterer, Hedges, & Parker, 2016)

Through these steps I have come to realize digital citizenship is more than just how to use the web for writing and finding resources.  If you are truly teaching students to be quality digital citizens, you need to make sure they understand the consequences to their digital actions and are informed digital citizens.

Resources:

·       Burt, R. (2012, February 9). The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.theedublogger.com/2012/02/09/the-educators-guide-to-copyright-fair-use-and-creative-commons/

·       Dotterer, G., Hedges, A., & Parker, H. (2016, November). Fostering Digital Citizenship in the Classroom. The Education Digest, 58-63.

·       Graham-Matheson, L.,& Starr, S. (2013). Is it cheating or learning the craft of writing? Using Turnitin to help students avoid plagiarism. Research in Learning Technology, 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21i0.17218

ISTE Standard 3- Modeling Technology

In my school, there are new teachers who are digitally literate, teachers who have been there a while but are keeping up with the changing technological times, and teachers who are reluctant to try any technology in their classrooms.  My triggering question for this week was, how can I demonstrate knowledge, and skills around mathematical technologies available to help reluctant teachers create a dynamic and interactive math classroom? As a teacher, I work hard to constantly adapt my practice to fit the needs of my students.  Currently, the shift I am making is in technology.  I am working to bring the level of technology use in my classroom up to the level of technology use my students are looking for.  In my research, I found an article titled No Teacher Left Behind: How to Teach With Technology by James Efaw.  This article talks about the three phases of implementing technology in a school.  It says that, “the three phases are learning, practice and feedback, and continued development” (Efaw, 2005).  As I have been working to get some of the veteran teachers on board with the technology changes I have noticed the same thing as Efaw did, “one of the biggest obstacles is the negative attitude of some faculty toward having technology in the classroom” (Efaw, 2005).  One of the key points in this article is that staff must be trained in the technology we want them to use, they need to practice using the technology they were trained on and then they need to receive feedback on their implementation.  Without those three steps the implementation of technology will fail.  In my school right now, we have occasional technology trainings but they are not focused or intensive enough to set a teacher up for success.  We are also not taking the time to visit each other’s classrooms to provide feedback to teachers making it hard for consistent technology implementation.

My classmate Katie found an article titled Using Technology to Increase Parent Involvement in School.  The focus of this article was around gaining parental involvement in their students’ academic lives.  This is something my school is seriously lacking.  I have begun using a website to communicate due dates, homework assignments, and general expectations with my students and their families.  I have also started using Remind to let students know about upcoming classroom events such as tests, quizzes, homework assignments, or other activities they should know about.  “Schools should be seeking ways to maximize emerging technological tools to promote better communication between teachers and parents” (Olmstead, 2013).  As I work with the technologically reluctant teachers in my department I am striving towards technology use in all aspects of their teaching.  I want to help teachers utilize the technology available to them so that students can access their classes.

As I continued researching my triggering question, I was looking through the assigned readings for my Teaching with Technology course.  There was an article titled, Effective Features in Computer Learning Games.  As I think about the types of technology I want to implement in my classroom and help others implement in theirs, games seem like a fun place to start.  This article talked about the place games have in the classroom.  I find that too often we are so focused on the tests we need to teach to, the content that needs to be covered, and the content as a whole we forget to have fun in our classrooms.  “Computer learning games are not only welcomed as a way to motivate learners, but also can serve as a mechanism for learning” (Su & Draper Rodriguez, n.d.).  Bringing games into the classroom can help students connect with the content, understand the content better, and bring joy into what they are learning.  Through my research, I am able to begin answering my triggering question.  I do not feel that I have the whole answer yet, but I have a place to start.  I am going to start looking for ways to get the technologically reluctant members of my department training on some of the simpler technology tools they can use in their classroom.  Once they have been trained, we will practice implementation, and finally I will observe and provide feedback on their implementation of the technology.  I am also going to talk with the technology person at my school to see if we can start a school wide process for implementing technology in our classrooms.

Works Cited

Efaw, J. (2005, January 1). No Teacher Left Behind: How to Teach with Technology. Educause Quarterly, (4), 26-31. Retrieved November 3, 2016.

Olmstead, C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools. TechTrends, 57(6), 28-37. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=91587612&site=ehost-live

Su, B., & Draper Rodriguez, C. (n.d.). Effective Features in Computer Learning Games. 148-153. Retrieved November 6, 2016.