ETL 523 Assessment 3, Part B: Critical Reflection Blog Post or Learning about digital citizenship is like putting together a complicated forever changing, jigsaw puzzle

                         
                                            ( Puzzle Krypt by Schlucher from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Puzzle_Krypt-2.jpg)
What have  I learned  by examining the concept of digital citizenship and its applications in preparing a school digital environment?

Learning about digital citizenship and the digital learning environment has been like putting together a jigsaw. Prior to undertaking this subject I thought that digital citizenship (DC) would not be interesting and that it pertained to keeping safe online. As the time came closer to the beginning of the semester, I came to look forward to learning about DC. This is reflective of my maturing attitude to my studies and to my work as a teacher librarian. Learning about DC has taught me that it is not just cyber safety and that it is actually highly interesting and relevant to my school digital learning environment. I have learned, among many other things,  that it has  Nine Elements  not one. The lectures have started me thinking about and experimenting with, embedding  it in my teaching and learning across K-6 (Ramrakha, 2014). I understand that to be a good digital citizen one must not just consume but contribute. In a small way, I have started doing this by blogging on my school library website (21clibrary ) and by expanding my personalized learning network (PLN). I feel my understanding of this is in its infancy but I am starting to put the pieces together of the jigsaw. 



   How has this subject extended my knowledge and understanding of the role of digital learning environments?

Although, DLE, is at times, organic in nature, this subject has shown me that this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case in its entirety. At school, so far, the DLE, has been managed by the DEC, however, in recent times the staff have been thinking about how we can manage it more ourselves, within the DEC firewall. This subject has given me some tools to structure this intervention around. For example, I found the lecture on Designing the Digital Learning Environment opened my mind to the possibilities when I read the Digital Learning Environment for Scottish Schools.  What I mean is that it made me see what could be possible and to what extent the DEC is failing to support schooling in the digital age. Such as when website filtering controls what images and what websites the students have access to. This is a double edged sword as the children need to be protected but when they are home the digital divide comes in to play as their internet access is unfiltered when they leave school. So, at school by limiting their access we are not teaching them how to cope with the real digital world as it is an artificial one.  

 The role of the library and the Teacher Librarian

 Since beginning my Master of Education I have been pondering this question. I always thought it was my job to support teaching and learning by resourcing the curriculum, encourage the enjoyment of reading, teaching information literacy and so forth. I know am beginning to see that I can use my knowledge to inform practice at my school. Now, I understand that I can stretch my professional wings, so to speak. For example, I have talked to the leadership team about making time in our already scheduled planning week at the end of term, to write a vision statement and strategic plan for this shift to a twenty-century school that they are excited about making. I will be helping write this document, as well as, a scope and sequence document for ICT. The latter will incorporate DC so that it can be taught to every Stage at school. Through this subject I am developing a PLN. It is my ambition to use this PLN to share with the staff at my school where we should be headed and why we should be going there through differentiated professional development Most of all, however, I want to use my new knowledge and enthusiasm for DC and how it interacts with the DLE to enhance the twenty first century  learning outcomes of my students. I want my knowledge of DC to inform not only policy but practice at school, not only of myself or in the library but to have it transfer throughout the staff at school and across the boundaries of my school to the outside world. I want to use my knowledge to expand my classes’ horizons. I want to use it so that when the students leave school they have DC embedded in their thinking and their actions.


 References Ramrakha, S. (2014, May 9). Module 5.3: Creating a digital citizenship program [Online forum comment}. Retrieved from http://digital.csu.edu.au/groups/etl523-digital-citizenship-in-schools/forum/topic/module-5-3-creating-a-digital-citizenship-program/

Powtoon

This is the Powtoon I created as part of our Future Schools night at school. It is my first Powtoon. I found the platform easy to use.  The idea of the presentation is to explain what I am trying to achieve in the library so that I can raise funds to replace the shelves and  the furniture.

Jigsaw Pieces

Now I understand why it is that the elective subject needs to be done later in the Masters course. As I am writing the framework for my second assessment task for ETL523 Digital Citizenship for Schools, it feels like the other subjects I have studied are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and this one is the board holding it all together.

I am starting to understand, at a deeper level what 21st century education is and how it fits with other elements such as the NSW Syllabus, the global environment and the Quality Teaching Framework.The aim of 21st century education is to equip teachers and students to function creatively and collaboratively at a high level. The nature of the work place is changing in Australia. Manufacturing is dying in this country so Australians need to provide the world with an alternative reason to "buy Australian". The answer to this is in education, not only of the foundation skills of Literacy and Mathematics but also to be creative and collaborative.

 Australians need to see themselves on the world stage because the problems we are facing are so vast and complicated that a team of minds is required to solve them. We are more interconnected with the world than ever before. The changing nature of the image economy has made this so.

Change, of course, is the only certainty. If we don't equip our students to be efficient learners then they will be left behind. How then, are we to do this? On a small scale, creating and teaching children and educators how to establish a PLN is one way of achieving this. If we can all learn from each other then the huge amount of information available becomes more manageable. We don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak, as someone somewhere will be willing to share how they did it themselves. Of course we need to mindful that we must share our learning too if we are to be honourable global citizens.