Digital Citizens are knowledgeable about the digital environment and use this knowledge to make educated choices. They use technology in analytical ways and can use a multitude of formats to improve their lives and the world around them. Creating this type of student requires faculty that are themselves aware of a variety of online platforms, websites, modalities, and an understanding of how information is used and harnessed online. Direct instruction and modeling is then utilized in all courses to ensure that students are able to gain the knowledge they need to be successful in the world in which they live.
To become effective at modeling digital citizenship, instructors should push themselves to take classroom lessons outside of the LMS. Doing so allows students to create knowledge records that will not cease to exist when they complete their coursework. It also allows them to utilize external knowledge they have and learn about new platforms they may not have yet used. This requires that first and foremost, faculty are using different types of digital tools, resources, and platforms themselves. Becoming adept at technologies students prefer is vital. While Tik Tok is an app that has seemingly little academic use, more and more users are harnessing this media to educate rather than just mindlessly entertain. A student can create a series of parenting advice videos and host them on Tik Tok or Instagram. This type of an assignment is useful in their coursework, but can also serve them well when they are working with families later in their career.
Students should be educated about digital practices so they can understand how to better assess the usefulness of internet data and make educated decisions on how to use the internet. If a goal of education is to ensure that we have citizens who can think and act responsibly, then we must teach them to effectively analyze sources. Otherwise, students will read minimally and push agendas or opinions they might not fully understand. Learning to sort through content or question a source are vital skills in a democracy and each citizen must be able to do so to fully contribute.
Using Open Educational Resources, or OER is another key practice in digital citizenship. OER are shared resources, often textbooks, that faculty can use in their classrooms without costs to students. When we teach with OER, we are showing our digital skill sets, but also incorporating equity into our classrooms as this practice addresses the high costs of textbooks and education to students. Faculty should learn to read the copyright symbols for OER and then model use of citation for such content when they reuse or remix material.
Before my education in this area, I had no concept of digital citizenship was beyond Netiquette. I did not assign content outside of the LMS and I certainly never considered how a student could access and use knowledge created for a course in their later career. I had attended a training on OER, but had failed to implement any OER's into my courses due to time constraints and a lack of results when I did search initially.
After completing this course, I have implemented many practices that impact my students and many more. I have implemented assignments inspired by the Algorithm assignment. I have implemented assignments to that require students to leave the LMS and create and house their work. I have also taken on a project to develop materials that faculty general get from the publisher for the most common course in my department. I am working to create PowerPoints, testing banks, assignments, handouts, and practice flashcards and games that faculty can pull into their classes. The current textbook most of our faculty use costs are students $130, but it comes with all of these resources for faculty. Creating them around an OER textbook will allow our instructors to easily make the shift.
One of the most impactful lessons in the Digital Citizenship class for me was the one in which you learn how our searches online are pre-determined using algorithms. I redesigned several discussion boards around the Ted Talk: The Era of Blind Faith in Big Data Must End by Cathy O'Neil but made them specific to Human Development and Early Childhood Education. For example, in one class when we discuss the teenage years I have my students watch this Ted Talk and discuss the teenage perspective. In another class, I have my students watch the Ted Talk on Filter Bubbles by Eli Pariser and then they search "punishment for children" and share their results while comparing it to their own beliefs around spanking. This allows us to discuss discipline and spanking and learn about the larger issues around the internet.
Thoughtfully altering existing assignments is an easy way to become more relevant incorporating digital citizenship. In my practicum class, students are writing lessons plans each week and implementing them with children. I have shifted this assignment so they additionally contribute to a Pinterest board. This requires them to sort through many developmentally inappropriate activities for children to find those that are acceptable. They must use the knowledge they have gained in prior coursework to weed through and access what is quality. Additionally, creating a board allows them to have a access to these ideas later when they are working with children in the field.
This is a link to Quizlet that I am using in some of my courses. Not only does this allow students to use virtual flashcards, it has many games that they can play with the flashcard information I have inputted. I am currently creating one for each chapter in my HDEV 1 classes and these will be given to all the faculty teaching this course in my department as well.
After I have completed the OER project, I will address accessibility of the textbook. One issue I recently discovered is that OER textbooks are often not accessible. I have access to the word document, so I will spend time revising this and making it an accessible document.