Learning & Leading Through Technology

leArNiNgconnections

Digital Citizenship 24 Apps 27

Multidisciplinary 28, 34, 36

Social Studies 30 Tip 33

Making It Personal: A New Approach to Teaching Digital

it’s 9 a.m., and already two of my students are standing up in the middle of the room yelling at one another—and I’m thrilled about it. This is not a jealous spat or a gossip session. Sixth grader Ryan Martin is arguing that his parents bear no responsibility for his behavior online. Fellow classmate Sophia Kurnot says that parents should make it their business to manage their children’s online habits, even if it means they have to invade privacy.

This is one of several debates my students participated in as a part of their sixth grade Issues in Technology class at St. John’s Episcopal School in Olney, Maryland, USA. The course lasted a mere 12 weeks, yet all of the students were disappointed when it was over and agreed that it would affect their behavior indefinitely.

Roots in Cyberbullying Issues in Technology evolved from a need articulated by both our parent community and the students themselves. Incidents on Facebook, Insta-gram, and Twitter occurring outside of school hours indicated that our students were not learning to be good digital citizens. Sure, students knew which answer was right on a test and could explain what embodies responsible participation online. However, generalizing and applying those rules to their own choices was a different situation that students did not seem to understand.

NETS•S Digital Citizenship indicators dictate that students should be able to (a) advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology as well as (d) exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

As the director of academic technology, I felt that mastering all of the other NETS was not as important as knowing how to use the tools responsibly. It seemed akin to giving a teenager a smartphone and showing her how to use it, but then failing to discuss issues such as sexting and cyberbullying.

That’s why our administrative team
worked over the summer to create a
trimester-long course that would help
students develop a personal relationship
with the issues. We decided that debate
was the most effective way to do that.
We initially included a short unit on
hardware studies as well but decided to
drop the content in future years.

Students Debate Social Media Topics

We started out by introducing the sixth graders to various digital citizenship issues. For the first topic, social media and middle school students, we asked: Should a 12-year-old be allowed to have a Facebook page or Ins-tagram account? Together we watched and discussed news reports of incidents, such as the school bus monitor bullying event ( bit.ly/LJzQwS).