Workshop [3]

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.