Header image from edutopia.org
In today's workshop, the topic was digital citizenship, staying safe online and copyrights.
In the beginning a brainstorming question was posed:
"What does digital citizenship mean for you? How do you understand it?"
I found myself not being able to articulate an answer very well which made me think that maybe the answer is not clear in my head. When I think of citizenship my mind automatically goes to participation in formal processes e.g. elections, and how this democratic right of voting has been made possible nowadays with the digitization of our personal information. Then, some thoughts followed around our digital citizen profiles and the storage of sensitive information such as social security number, tax information, etc. but also the digitization of processes such as bank transactions, paying bills.
Then I altered the question a little so that I would be able to get more thoughts flowing:
"How to be a good digital citizen?"
A few answers came to mind here. I think a good digital citizen should:
Be able to communicate effectively over the internet
Be able to search and evaluate information online
Be able to protect their personal information
Be able to handle digital tools efficiently
Below the term of digital citizenship is defined for clarity and after that the tools that were explored in this workshop, as well as the results, are presented in sections.
According to Wikipedia, "Digital citizenship is the responsible and respectful use of technology to engage online, find reliable sources, and protect and promote human rights. It teaches skills to communicate, collaborate, and act positively on any online platform."
Analyze the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) of a selected European Union country, focusing on its performance in connectivity, human capital, internet usage, digital technology integration, and digital public services. Compare the country's results with the EU average, identifying key strengths and areas for improvement. Use relevant data from DESI reports and provide recommendations for enhancing the country's digital development.
We formed a team of four people and chose "Austria" as the country to explore and compare it to Finland.
We used four metrics for our research which we thought were most significant for measuring the country's progress towards digitization.
The metrics were, in individual level:
1) Internet use
2) At least basic digital skills
3) Above basic digital skills
4) ICT graduates
Based on the results, we made the below observations:
Even though a very large amount of the population uses the internet in both Austria and Finland, with Austria being at 90% and even surpassing Finland, the number of people that has basic digital literacy skills is significantly lower, with Austria's precentage being just over 60% of the whole. This number drops steeply when we are talking about above average digital skills. It was also surprising to note that both those countries produce a very small number of ICT graduates, with the number for both countries being between 0-20% of the population.
Overall, the DESI tool is a really useful tool that gives recent and accurate data about EU countries progress towards the digital future. I think that in order to derive conclusions from the graphs, one has to examine metrics in comparison to eachother and not standalone. For example in the case of Austria, by looking at the internet usage only, one could assume that the general public is well digitally literate and even in an advanced level, but then this is quickly debunked by the other metrics.
Today we use the SELFIE tool developed by the European Union to reflect on what kind of EU citizens we are from an e-learning perspective.
The selfie acts as a stimulus to bring you back to the school world of your high school (upper secondary school) days. It will take you about 25 minutes to respond, then write a short reflection in the message box below. In particular, reflect on what your school was like from the point of view of the survey.
In other words, do this:
Answer the survey from the perspective of your own high school, even though SELFIE basically measures a single school. (I have created a version of the questionnaire for our course, so we can do it a bit differently)
After answering the survey, reflect on how your school was compared to the questions on the survey.
In the SELFIE questionnaires there was a set of core questions organised into eight common practice areas:
Area A: Leadership
Area B: Collaboration and networking
Area C: Infrastructure and equipment
Area D: Continuing Professional Development
Area E: Pedagogy: Supports and Resources
Area F: Pedagogy: Implementation in the classroom
Area G: Assessment Practices
Area H: Student Digital Competence
So the questions had to do with matters such as:
how extended or limited the usage of technology was in the learning process
if there was proper infrastructure and equipment in the school
if technology was used for e.g collaborative activities
if technology was used for the organization of materials, for example with an LMS (Moodle, etc.)
if there was support in developing our digital competencies
All these questions managed to bring me back to my school years and afterwards, in a little reflection exercise, I wrote the text below:
by Faktabaari Suomi
Pick up fake news site from the Wikipedia Collection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites
Faktabaari: https://faktabaari.fi/fakta/
Case Studies and Examples: https://libguides.lib.cwu.edu/c.php?g=625394&p=4391900
Investigate the content using Immune 2 Epidemic tools.
Create one slide (!) on powerpoint or similar tool AND save it as a jpg or png (picture). Minimum content requirements are: a) name the fake news site; b) identify page from the site what you did investigate; c) explain why it's fake news
Upload your group's presentation picture to discussion thread below:
My team picked this news website from the Wikipedia Collection:
https://superofficialnews.com/
The topic that captured our attention was the one titled as "First Ever Head Transplant Is a Success". The fact that it caused an emotional reaction was the first indicator that this is fake news. Looking at the article more closely, we found a lot more indications as can be seen in the picture on the left.
Overall, this was a fun investigation that brought some laughter but also raised our awareness on the steps we need to take to cross-check information that we find online.
By playing with the Bad News website, you can master techniques to recognize how content impacts people and how credibility from news websites is built, not always through ethical means.
"In your portfolio, reflect on the theme of digital security. Revisit the learning material and exercises as necessary. What new things did you learn? What more do you need to learn? What surprised you in the area of digital security? Reflect on the questions above in your portfolio, for example"
What new things did you learn?
I learned about Europe's Digital Education Action Plan which I hadn't heard of before. It was really interesting to read about the effort being made to create a unified digital education ecosystem while simultaneously addressing flaming topics such as accessibility, participation of underrepresented groups such as women in STEM, and infusing AI and relevant competencies into the existing frameworks.
I also learned a lot more about GDPR, which was something that I simply knew what it meant but had never dug deeper.
What more do you need to learn?
One area that I need to inform myself better on is copyrights. Even though I've seen the copyright symbols dozen of times, I have even studied them before and created a license myself, I still cannot seem to retain that knowledge, therefore every time it feels like reading about them for the first time. It seems even more relevant nowadays with Generative AI to raise our awareness around copyright issues, but also, on a personal note, having reached a Master's level education with the prospect of having my own published works in the foreseeable future, is a valid reason to inform myself on how to protect my work, but also use and refer to other peoples' creative works as responsibly as possible.
What surprised you?
I was surprised by my own lack of thinking around digital citizenship which made me dig deeper into the reasons behind it. I started thinking about how we have learned to be citizens in the modern times and the situation back in my home country. In Greece it is considered a very important indication of one's participation as a citizen, whether or not they participate in the national elections process that takes place every 4 years (with some exceptions). However, consistent participation in community events/assemblies,community service or constant self-information and self-update about changes in legislation, or anything that concerns our rights as citizens, are ways of participation that are not highlighted that much. In general, I believe staying active as a citizen and communicating with people, fighting for societal issues that are dismissed by the state, using our other rights besides voting, are actions that are left idle. My generation, and the older ones as well were not educated towards that direction which I think now has left a huge gap.
This leads me to think that in order to become well-equipped digital citizens, we should perhaps first re-learn how to be active citizens in the real world. We should gain more awareness on our citizen rights, on what it means to be an active citizen, ways of contributing towards a common good purpose, and then transfer this knowledge, but most importantly mindset, onto the digital world. I don't think there's a lack of information around digital literacy, or that it is not simple and accessible enough, it is our own questioning that is lacking. I have personally informed myself multiple times about issues around digital security, but I still have not changed a single thing in my digital environment. I am still using Gmail as my main mail service, still using Google as a search engine, still actively using social media accounts and implicitly giving my consent to my personal data being used. That is not because I'm having trouble processing the information about digital security that is given to me, but it only reaches a surface-level in my thoughts and emotions, that does not drive me to act and change my digital habits. I think this is what needs to be targeted by education. Raising students' questioning, critical thinking, putting them in authentic situations where they will be troubled, in the context of projects that are meaningful to them. Simply informing them about subjects of digital information literacy, or giving them materials to read, perhaps will not make much of a change.