An Update on My Major Project, Just in Time for Digital Citizenship Week!

Over the past week I have been living and breathing Digital Citizenship... and yes there have been times that it has left me quite light-headed as it can be pretty heavy! A huge part of my week was preparing myself for a Digital Citizenship Parent night that I helped to organize. One aspect of the evening was focused on point of view of educators and the integration of the Digital Citizenship into learning, resources for teachers, students and parents (via I am Stronger and the Regina Catholic School Division Resources) and tips to further assist parents about opening the conversation about social media with teens and tweens. Within the context of my presentation I tried to take the point of view of the resources out there that parents can access to work in conjunction with what we were trying to accomplish from a school division level as well as from the perspective of the Ministry. My presentation transitioned well into a presentation from the Internet Child Exploitation ICE Unit which included members from the RCMP and the City of Regina Police Department.

Their presentation was eye-opening and thought provoking. Although some might say that it focused on the negatives and the dangers that might be presented when teens get in over their heads. I do think that the message has to get out there. If just for the reason that parents need to understand the importance of having open conversations with their children about social media. Just as Ohler points out in "Character Education for the Digital Age" parents and teachers need to prepare youth for using social media to improve how we interact and communicate, but at the same time, we need to ensure that they are safe too.

How this presentation fits within the context of my major project is it provides components for building community and collaboration between parents and teachers in educating students about digital citizenship. We will be using this presentation (in part if not whole) in part of the Digital Citizenship page.

Digital Citizenship Parent Night

In addition to this presentation, we happen to also have Digital Citizenship Training for teachers at the elementary level as well as middle years. In these sessions teachers will be able to "unpack" the Digital Citizenship Continnum, explore resources from our school division as well as those from I am Stronger  and in grade alike/similar groups create lessons that integrate Ribble's Elements of Digital Citizenship as presented through the Continuum within different subjects focusing on outcomes. I will definitely point them in the direction of also checking out TeachInCtrl's site that Danielle Maloney shared in our Google Community Discussion space, with her reference to Edutopia's Digital Citizenship Week: 6 Resources for Educators.

If you are interested, feel free to leave comments regarding the Digital Planning Framework that I have posted. Within the lesson planner document, teachers may include Curricular outcomes, Digital Citizenship elements, identify the Essential Skills as well as assessment and typical planning content. Genna Rodriguez, my project partner and I would love any feedback!

In addition to creating lessons that focus on authentic integration of digital citizenship, we will also be exploring digital integration according to our 7C's or Essential Skills for 21st Century Learning into Balanced Literacy. Genna and I will be sharing this presentation with colleagues this week. The presentation contains sample task cards for teachers in integrating the 7C's into Balanced Literacy.

Here is the Digital Citizenship and the Balanced Approach to Learning powerpoint so far... With these professional development sessions, Genna and I hope to help teachers see not only how Digital Citizenship can be integrated into learning, but the other Essential Skills as well. This includes, connecting, creating, collaborating, critical thinking, communicating, curating. (See image at top of post). Therefore the focus of our project is not only to share with teachers the definition and description for each of the Essential Skills, but ways teachers can integrate them into their planning.