About Me

Remind everyone about your role, learner age(s), technology environment, and technology stance.       

        I am a freshman social studies teacher at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in rural western Maine. All of my students have school issued laptops, and this year I have two school issued laptops for teaching and for Zooming. I am comfortable with technology, but admittedly do not do a whole lot of adventuring when it comes to technology. I generally like to stick to what I know which is a lot of Google Classroom and other Google pages. I think technology is a great thing to incorporate into our classrooms. I think it's super important for my students to learn how to use technology effectively and to learn all of the great uses technology can be used for. 

What are your strengths?

        One of my strengths as a teacher is building relationships. I think I'm pretty easy going and like to have a lot of fun with my students. I try to learn as much as possible about all my students, and enjoy having a laugh with my students. I'm also good at setting classroom routines. I have very specific routines that I like to follow, especially at the beginning and endings of class. 

Where would you like to see some improvement whether for you or for your learners?

        I think I need to do a better job of connecting my students to the outside world. I use technology in my classroom, but mostly basic stuff like slideshows and Google Classroom. I would like to start using more technology to broaden my students horizons. I want to start using things such as Twitter chats to allow my students to connect with people from all over. 

List 5 topics, ideas, areas or specific readings that you have wanted to explore.

        - Using Twitter in the classroom.

        - Increasing student collaboration.

        - Learning more about digital citizenship.

        - Strategies to improve teaching online.

        - Promoting and using peer feedback. 

Explain why or how any or all of these impact your learning environment or personal growth?

        I think these are all ways that I could improve my classroom and make it a better place for my students. Some of these challenge me to get better as some things that I already do, and some challenge me to step out of my comfort zone and try things that I've never tried before. I think improving in all of these areas would improve the classroom for my students and improve the learning opportunities they are engaged in. 

Do you know what direction you already would like to go?

        I think I want to explore Twitter chats and how I could incorporate them in the classroom. I really enjoyed my time on the two Twitter chats I participated in, and think my students would enjoy doing it as well. This would allow me to achieve my goal of connecting my students to people outside our building and outside of our community.

Do you see alignment with the course central questions or outcomes?

        Learning more about Twitter chats would align with the "How might we use technology to enhance real world, collaborative, learner centered education?" Having students engage in Twitter chats with people from all over the world would definitely be collaborative for them and would be a great real world experience for them. This would also fall under the course learning outcome of "Demonstrate fluency with new educational tools, and articulate the affordances and constraints of such tools to support educational practice."

Digital Citizenship Reflection

Share your thoughts on the teaching or training of digital citizenship / etiquette / rules in your classroom/work environment.

    I think that teaching students to be safe when using electronics is super important. There are a lot of ways to get in trouble while using digital devices and a lot of things that can go wrong. For students safety, it's important that they all understand what's out there and how it is that they can protect themselves. When it comes to this matter of online safety, I really do not know enough about it to teach my students. I think a lot of teachers at my school feel the same way, which is why a lot of us have our librarian come in and teach a lesson on digital safety.

    When it comes to rules and etiquette, I think it's important for teachers to emphasize those aspects of assignments along with what the assignment actually is. Today, I think that kids are really good at downloading apps and using them, but I don't think they're as good with technology as we sometimes give them credit for. Students definitely need training on how to use these platforms!

    

Is it embedded in the curriculum, its own unit, or something that you do not formally teach/train/manage? Explain why you follow this path.

    While I think it's important to make sure my students are being safe with their technology use, I think it's also important for them to be able trouble shoot on their own. I think that's part of the learning process is not giving up at the first roadblock and being able to get past it. For this reason, when I have students use a new technological platform, I make sure they are aware of any safety precautions or rules they need to know, but then I let them go. That means that when we start an assignment online, I go over the rules that I want to be followed, but I don't hold their hands when it comes to learning how to use the platform. An example of this would be when I have my students use Canva to create online infographics. I help the students create accounts and make sure that they are safe and private. After that though, I like to let them play with the different tools and features and figure things out on their own. Of course I help if they really need it, but I like to push students to be able to trouble shoot on their own.

    Aside from having the librarian come in and talk about how to protect yourself online, I don't have any special lesson plans on technology. I tend to just address rules and issues as needed with different assignments.

Should digital citizenship be a part of the school-wide (work environment) curriculum? Who should teach it or train learners/employees? How?

    I think it should be part of the school-wide curriculum, and I think that my school could definitely do a better job emphasizing it. We have had a few major issues at my school over the past couple of years with misuse of technology, so I think my school could definitely put a bigger emphasis on it.

    Like I said above, I don't really think I know enough to be qualified to teach students about being safe online. I think there are two solutions to this. The first solution would be to have staff development on the subject, and to make digital citizenship a part of all content areas. If we had staff development on digital citizenship and were taught more about it and how to teach our kids to be good digital citizens, I think that would be one way to do it. I think the other way to do it would be to have larger training sessions for our students. We could bring in guest speakers and have student workshops where they learned to be responsible digital citizens.

Any other thoughts you want to share about the importance (or not) of digital citizenship?

    I honestly haven't given digital citizenship a lot of though up until the readings this week. Other teachers have the librarian teach their students to be safe online, so I figured I would do the same. Outside of that, I don't usually put a lot of thought into digital citizenship. I make sure my students follow basic, obvious rules when working online, but I also don't think I'm aware of a lot of the dangers out there. I guess my question is, what real dangers do I need to teach my students about when creating an infographic on Canva? Or when I have them create a google website? Maybe I'm over thinking what digital citizenship really is, but I feel like I don't really have a lot to offer my students when it comes to digital citizenship.

Intro Video