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