Digital Citizenship at my school

It's been an interesting week at school, and I'm amazed how my (soon to be) new life as an administrator (ES Principal) is tying into this Connected Educator course. I have to say that both Frontline documentaries affected me in different ways. 

In Growing Up Online, I could only think about how sorry I felt for Cam, the high school student with an overprotective mother. I thought back to my life in high school, and how happy I was to move 1,000 miles away from home when it was time for college. 

And while the video warned that some images might be inappropriate for children, I certainly felt awkward watching this documentary at Tom and Tom's (a coffee shop). South Korea censors the Internet and tries to block anything deemed pornographic, and at one point, I had to turn my computer to hide images of Autumn Edows. My concern was that a patron would see what was on the laptop and make a huge fuss.

In the Digital Nation follow up documentary, I immediately recognized the PC bongs in South Korea before the narrator even identified them. I noticed that the documentary did not cover the censorship of the Web that happens in South Korea, nor that if the Korean government really wanted to, it could try to block access to online games. And online gaming addiction is a real concern at my school. 

Since students in Grades 5 and up use MacBooks as part of the 1 to 1 laptop program, they have access to their computers all the time. During lunch, snack, and between classes, some groups of boys will just sit on the hallway floors and play League of Legends, a role-playing game (RPG) similar to World of Warcraft which was highlighted in the documentary. 

And students certainly use the computer to check their hair (also shown in the video) as well as engage in bullying online (using local social sites like Naver). These are real, everyday issues at my school. Consequences included taking away student MacBooks and cell phones, but students have tried to find ways around these restrictions. Boarding students must hand in their laptops and cell phones at 10:00 PM every night (they are locked in a cabinet in their dorm common room), but some students filled their laptop cases with paper notebooks rather than the computer itself, and others just had a second cell phone (or tablet/device to access the Internet) hidden in their bedrooms, and they'd stay up many hours after bedtime to play games or chat.

But the control has mostly been punitive, and these devices are seen as "problems" rather than tools. There has been a greater emphasis on educating students about choices they can make, but all the MacBooks now have monitoring software installed so that the IT Department can view student screens at any time.

Middle school students hated seeing me in the study hall room last year because they knew I had caught their peers trying to Skype or play RPGs during homework; moving around the room, being aware of students rapidly clicking on certain keys, and with a simple use of Command-Tab in order to see all programs running on a computer (since screens can be changed so quickly), any teacher can monitor a study hall session. But prevention isn't about just establishing a reputation, it's also about being pro-active and talking to students about your expectations for their use of the Internet/technology.

Next year, my goal for the elementary school will be to inform students how to make good choices through an Integrated Tech class period, and for teachers to make sure they are moving around their classrooms and in the tech lab while students are using school-provided iPads and computers.

In my classroom and school, I will say that just like in the video of South Korean children, students are learning to use the computer at the same time they are learning to read and write (we just don't sing the netiquette song in Korean...we are an English-medium school after all). Although we start in Grade 1 with digital etiquette rather than wait until Grade 2.

In my Digital Citizenship Prezi, I used examples from my Grade 3 class to discuss ways that my students practice the NETS (National Educational Technology Standards).

My students are learning to cite information and summarize it rather than just cutting and pasting.

My students are using gaggle.net email accounts to collaborate on a Social Studies project with their pen pals in Florida.

My students use iPad applications both individually and as teams, and one of the most memorable moments of the year was when North London Collegiate School students visited and the students used Bluster to compete with their peers from a neighboring school. 

They had tons of fun learning and challenging each other.

Using the iPads on the beanbags.

And I was also very proud of the two boys who notified me at different times during the school year when they found inappropriate images as part of a search they were conducting. Even with filters, not every possible bad image is blocked. But these boys knew that they found something wrong, and rather than bring it to the attention of the entire class, or giggle uncontrollably, they just signaled me quietly, and calmly said, "I think there is a bad image, and I know I will not use it in my Keynote."

I think this ties into the idea that we need to give kids some credit. Rather than live in fear of sexual predators trying to lure kids into danger, teach kids to make responsible choices. My 3rd graders know what is bad, and they can choose to delete it or ignore it.

So, for the new teacher orientation in August, I will need to inform the new faculty about ways students are making good and bad choices with their computers. The Prezi assignment for this week was VERY helpful because I've started considering how I want to discuss digital citizenship with the staff. I don't feel as though my Prezi is quite ready for a faculty meeting, but rather, it's a working document that I will tweak before I actually present it; I'm just excited that my classwork ties nicely into something I already need to do for work.