21 Things for Teachers

http://www.21things4teachers.net

AkLA 2015: Early Literacy & New Media for Young Children

So many great resources here! Claudia Haines presented a very full session at AkLA 2015!

Week 11: What is media literacy? Why is it important that students develop media literacy skills? How do we define media literacy, particularly as it applies to the needs of our students living in a media saturated world? What is the difference between media literacy versions 1 and 2? How can we use students’ desire to make media as an opportunity to also teach them media literacy skills?

Media Literacy is having the skills to recognize, evaluate, and apply the persuasive techniques of media,  (Ohler, Digital Storytelling in the Classroom (11)) and is one of the most important things we can teach children. I found the subject compelling way back in the ‘70’s when I was reading Animal Farm and 1984 by Orwell, though I didn’t call it Media Literacy then. Rather, I called it advertising and mind control. I had both a strange attraction and aversion to it because of its amazing power. I was amazed then by how easily people could be manipulated without realizing it. I knew how important it was to take a step back and deconstruct the messages we were receiving. However, I think it has been one of those overlooked topics through the years and rarely comes up in formal education, except in a few English classes. At least, in my experience. I know that at some point in grade school we were all required to create an advertising poster for a new brand of cereal, and I took a very sarcastic, jaded approach even at that age. I advertised for Barley Crusties, and used persuasive language that employed the common advertising style of the day to sell a really grotesque form of breakfast cereal. I’m not sure if this is what the teacher intended, but it was a very effective poster, and it hangs at my mother’s house to this day in one of the old bedrooms, mainly for it’s comic effect. The fact that very little media literacy is taught to our students is a frightening reality, considering how pervasive and powerful the various media are today. Without learning about the specific techniques being used by the media, people become mindless consumers.

I think the advent of Media Literacy 2.0, which is essentially the inclusion of production of media, presents us with a very powerful and attractive means to educate students about the important realities of our media-saturated culture. The production component moves our teaching from the didactic, “here is the information I want you to know” model of teaching, to a more participatory, and therefore more personal and powerful one. I firmly believe that our students will respond enthusiastically and really “own” the messages we are sharing with them if they are required to produce their own media. Having students learn about the various techniques and methods used by movie and television directors, advertisers, web designers, photographers, photo editing professionals, even musicians, and then turn around and actually use the methods themselves is a very powerful teaching strategy.

According to Cable in the Classroom’s “Media Literacy 101” site (http://www.ciconline.org/Resource/media-literacy-101-Section-III), “the five things everyone should know about media are: all media messages are constructions; each person interprets messages differently; media have commercial interests; media have values; each medium has its own language and style.” The site goes on to say we want for our children to “become active and critical thinkers about media, develop criteria for making decisions about media use, find and identify quality media resources, talk about what media they are consuming and why, become better able to use media for learning and communicating.”  I think this sums up very nicely exactly what we want for our upcoming generation to learn in this area. I would argue that most adults lack awareness in these areas for the most part, and would also benefit from increasing their as well.

I liked Cable in the Classroom’s comprehensive look at the various tools used by media today: scripts, lighting, camera angles, to name just a couple. Then their InCtrl (http://www.teachinctrl.org/) website, with all the tools to use in the classroom, shows students the techniques within the scripts themselves such as the bandwagon appeal, the celebrity endorsement appeal, the emotional appeal, and so on. Once students have been exposed to exactly how they are being manipulated, I think a shift occurs within them. Once they consciously construct their own “manipulative” media production, they will really own the concept. The ideal, of course, is for them to never look at media in the same way again, and to maintain an awareness for life of the media’s power to influence them and exactly how it is done.

As for including more media literacy within the classroom, I’m a little skeptical this will improve much. Honestly, there is so much being thrown at my staff these days, including both PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Strategy) and RTI (Response to Intervention). And now the new teacher evaluation system mandated by the state is going to be the new push for next year, which will require all of use to start uploading lesson plans, videos of our performance, lists of our professional achievements. Then there is the need to teach nutrition, anti-bullying lessons, to teach to the tests, to name just a few. I can just see the look on their faces if I were to suggest they also now start adding media literacy into the mix. I cannot get them to include time for keyboarding as it is! But, I do believe Media Literacy is one of the most important things to teach for the lifelong benefit of our students. I think getting the administration to recognize the need and have them encourage and/or require their staff to at least receive some professional development training would be a good start. Ideally, I think the library media specialist in each school should help teachers take a unit they are already teaching and make the end product a persuasive media production utilizing the techniques and tools of the trade, with the focus being creation and production by students. I know that I will do my best to do just that in collaboration with my staff.

 

 

Week 9: Topics in Digital Citizenship- Cyberbullying and Positive Online Behavior

Cyberbullying is a systematic, repetitive harassment of a targeted individual via electronic media such as email, social networking sites, and text messaging. It can include direct messages, defamation of character spread worldwide through social media tools, and/or deliberate exclusion and shunning. I think our schools should play a role from the very early years in building the ethics and character traits students need to not be the bully, to not be a by-stander and instead be an “up-stander,” and helping potential victims to have the resilience to cope with any attempts at bullying that may occur.

I also think it is important for any school to create a culture of safety so that those facing bullying feel secure in going to a trusted adult without fear of recrimination by the bully involved. Cyber bullying is simply a new tool for an old problem, and one that serves as a very effective and powerful extension of the real-life bully’s ability to inflict harm.

Ms. Nancy Willard’s research shows that bullying is and always has been a part of human nature, but that the current intensive focus on it in the media has us believing it is occurring in epidemic proportions. She has found through the surveys she has administered to students that it is in fact much less prevalent than media would have us believe. She also says that the best way to combat it is not so much to instill fear of punishment and increase lectures and admonishments by staff and other adults, but instead to publicize how most youth are NOT actually involved in it, and how negatively the behavior is viewed by their peers. She asserts that the most effective method of reducing bullying is to use positive peer pressure to encourage students to behave respectfully and appropriately or risk censure by their peers.

I agree with Ms. Willard’s assessment, and think the vital key here is student involvement and leadership in addressing the problem. I think the schools need to set up a student-centered, ethics based program that begins early and progresses systematically through high school. Students all need to know that there is an effective and safe means for reporting and getting relief from the bullying that does occur, and have the tools and personnel readily available to do so. I think the administration and local law enforcement need to work together to deal effectively with any truly criminal behavior, assuming that laws have been tweaked to make cyberbullying an actual crime.

 

In the elementary school, what’s challenging is that there are some kids who just so habitually tattle on others. We tend to tune them out or tell them to go handle it on their own. It’s hard to know if the situation is a tattler seeking attention or a true case of bullying. A remedy for that might be better communication among teachers and other staff to put together observations and develop remedies for budding situations early on. I think a first step is training staff to be aware of how the real-life and the virtual-life bullying can be hidden and what to look for. Then it is important to have a district-wide, cohesive program in place for dealing with both forms of bullying. And, as I mentioned above, it must be student-centered and focused not on the negative but on the positive. It must utilize the power of peer pressure to showcase the positive, healthy, supportive behaviors in which we WANT students to engage, and discourage and marginalize the negative behaviors we want students to leave behind.

Week 7: 1. What does Commonsense Media offer that can help your digital citizenship efforts? What general guidelines, activities, curriculum does CSM offer for classrooms, schools and districts? What specific resources does it offer for you as an educator in terms of addressing the needs of your classroom, school or district? How can you use Commonsense Media’s materials to help you in your professional practice as a teacher, administrator, or educational strategist?

Common Sense has emerged over the years as the go-to resource for most of my needs as library media specialist at Stedman Elementary. I am charged with teaching library and technology skills to our K-5 students, and this includes Digital Literacy. My staff is generally quite technology literate as well, and we are fortunate to have the bandwidth, the hardware and the support of our administration for implementing a full blown Digital Literacy instruction program.

While I have used Common Sense in the past, I drifted away from it in recent years as the assignments had generally failed to interest my students and I don’t think I was implementing them as well as I could have. I had also tried using the iSafe materials, but found they were heavily into scare tactics and that was not helpful. Plus I had pushy sales people call me to try to buy the whole program and make it a bigger project than I could at the time. Having reviewed the Common Sense materials for this course, I find they have evolved very much with the addition of the iPad app, the iBook textbook, the example videos of stellar teachers using the materials, and finally the reorganization of the curriculum presentation on the webpage, which provides clarity for my overstuffed and harried brain.

Because my staff and students have so much access to technology in our building (we have several iPad carts and a laptop for every student, though most are very old and slow, being the castoffs from the high school 1to1 program), and because of the general ubiquity of technology in our culture these days, I think it is vital we teach our students early all the nine elements of digital citizenship. Though my staff use technology within their daily teaching routines a great deal, in the past I have not coached them to include much in the way of formal digital literacy, which I think is one thing I need to improve upon. I plan to take on the bulk of the lessons, but I want to share the basic themes and ethics with the teachers so they can reinforce and enhance the teachings where ever possible. I also think bringing the community into the conversation is vital. We had tried a parent night on these topics about five years ago, and only three parents showed up…all associated with the school district. I think the time is right to try again, and I know our district technology coordinator, Jon Painter, and the high school librarian, Carissa Cotta, are planning to do one. I invited myself into the conversation on Friday, and Jon and I will be doing one soon, also, specifically aimed toward elementary parents.

There are a number of things I like about the Common Sense curriculum, starting with how comprehensive it is. It seems to cover all nine of the elements laid out in Digital Citizenship in Schools, by Ribble, except perhaps the digital access element. But that is an element not so much about teaching as it is about institutional structuring which needs to be address by every community and school. I also like how it includes the gaming aspect for the lessons, a new feature I think is brilliant! The gaming, along with the inclusion of an iPad app, will provide an increased level of fun and engagement for our students. A third feature, also new, now allows for reporting back to the teacher so I can track progress. In the past it was just worksheets that really held very little interest for my students, and seemed to me like a huge waste of paper. I’m just not a worksheet kind of teacher. It still has the worksheets, but I will likely treat those as a group wrap-up activity instead of individual ones. We’ll see once I start it. Finally, Common Sense also has a strong parent and community component which reaches into reviews of movies, music, books, games…all media in fact, and I think this is a huge help to parents. I went there often when my girls were in middle school to determine which movies they could go to, especially. I really liked that the reviews are very fact-based and don’t come with an agenda or a filter. They just lay out exactly what the movie contains. I plan to use the parent handouts and the presentation materials for the upcoming parent night, as well as the handouts that go home with each lesson.

So, I have pretty high hopes for the lessons and materials this time around. In the past I’ve taught the units in the spring, but I think I will start off the year with them next year, as the messages and information are important and urgent. I also plan to bring in our counselor if she would like to help out with these lessons, as she has good training and insight into the bullying, etiquette and ethics aspects of the material.

Question 6 (2/24 – 3/2): This week we look at specific tools which can be used to both assess digital citizenship readiness and develop readiness: the Digital Driver’s License and the Digital Passport. Also included this week are two perspective tools, that I thought might interest: Mike Ribble’s Digital Compass and my You’re In Charge activities, which you have already looked at. The question this week is simply this: As you look at the digital driver’s license or passport tools, what are their strengths and weaknesses? Could you use these with your students to help assess their “digital citizenship readiness” skills or to help them develop those skills? What do you feel you would need to add, if anything, to these?

I’ve looked over the resources provided and feel they both have potential. The Digital Passport from Common Sense looks especially promising for my elementary kids. (The timing couldn’t be more perfect for this, as we just had some inappropriate searching by three 4th grade boys, and our library will be closing in April for a renovation project, so I plan to use the rest of the year to hit digital citizenship hard with our students, as our sessions will be all about computers instead of books.) I just had Jon Painter, our tech person for our district, install them on all our iPads for students to use. I think both a weakness and a strength for the Digital Passport for some students is that it is very kid-friendly, and for my younger students that is a plus, but for my older students, it seems a bit juvenile. A very good strength is the inclusion of games into the teaching. I am a strong believer in using gaming in education whenever it is authentic and useful, and the one unit I completed used the game to drive home the point of how distracting a cell phone can be. Very effective! I have used Common Sense materials in years past, but found them rather dry and dull for the kids.  This new development with the systematic working through toward a passport goal, the ability to track student progress, and the gaming aspect for student appeal are all very strong positives for this one. I have yet to implement any of the lessons with my students, and I think that is where the proof will be.

I can tell you right off that just getting myself set up on the Digital Driver’s License (DDL) site took several days of figuring it all out, and I find it to be NOT very intuitive. When I logged in as a student, I was struck immediately how much reading of tiny print is involved in each lesson. I cannot imagine my students, even my 5th grade students, being able to wade through all that. I did like the depth of the questions, however, so maybe it would be something I could do with them if we walked through the entire lesson together, discussing them as we go and working in groups to come up with answers to each question. I liked the idea of this tool at first because they draw from various other resources, including Common Sense for their videos and such, but I think it is much better suited for older students with higher reading levels and longer attention spans! So, I guess this weakness in my eyes, could be a strength for teachers of older students.

I think a weakness of both programs is that they are not asking students what they think, and having our students build their own parameters of behavior, as discussed in previous sessions of this class. I believe learning is most powerful when it is constructed and students take an active part in creating the rules and guidelines they will be asked to follow, as outlined in Ohler’s video “You’re in Charge,” wherein students are asked to help frame the building of the rules.  I think I would use the Digital Passport program, but then take it one step further and have my students do sessions around each topic on creating their own rules and guidelines in order to truly “own” the information. I really liked the article “Developing Digital Direction” article by Ribble and Bailey, and would like to incorporate the use of the digital compass they provided when having students discuss various scenarios and come up with the rules and guidelines they can follow.

 

Question 5 (2/17 – 2/23) How could my school or district improve its approach to this issue?

I find Dr. Ribble’s nine elements to be the most comprehensive treatment of the topic I have seen yet. And I’m excited because I’ve had the idea of linking them with our PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention & Support) school mantra of Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe, and addressing the nine elements through that already familiar lens.

As far as how they emerge in the K-12 environment, I especially appreciated the breakdown provided in the movie he made that laid out the three “REP’s” and what to approach at each grade level:

1st REP – Grades K-2

Respect – Digital Etiquette

Educate – Digital Communication

Protect – Digital Rights & Responsibilities

2nd REP – Grades 3-5

Respect – Digital Access

Educate – Digital Literacy

Protect – Digital Safety & Security

3rd REP – Grades 6-8

Respect – Digital Law

Educate – Digital Commerce

Protect – Digital Health & Wellness

I think it all should be taught in an ongoing spiral, however, as there are issues regarding health and wellness as well as commerce that I would address in earlier grade levels. I start talking posture and budgeting of time spent on digital devices as young as first and second grades, and then because so many students play games online they need to know about the in-app purchase situations they will come across, and this often happens as young as first and second grade again. I do hit digital etiquette hard starting with kindergarten and first grade basics like removing headphones when someone is speaking to you. Then digital etiquette should be addressed again in later years, regarding a variety of etiquette situations such as how to deal with cell phones in social situations (texting during movies? accepting phone calls while having dinner? etc.) So, while I appreciate the idea of the three REP’s, I’m not so sure it is entirely possible to follow strictly.

Regarding professional development around these subjects, I agree more needs to be done, but I’m not sure how to manage it with all the PBIS and RTI going on these days! I do believe it is essential to have every teacher on the same page about the nine elements, and to seamlessly integrate the elements into any technology use they already do in the classroom. I think the best approach is to have it be part of a beginning of the year in-service for all staff. I like the idea of having staff take a close look at their own habits, beliefs and ethics, and then turn around and apply the  concepts to student work.

Then for students, I think framing the nine elements in a student-centered approach, with the students actively engaged in creating the guiding philosophies and rules of the road would be the best way. I started this approach today in a small way, by having my fifth graders talk in small groups about the following three questions: What is great about email? What problems are there about email? What rule and guidelines should we establish about email use, especially school assigned email? These were just questions I used as conversation starters. I think next time I would spend more time crafting better questions, but we got great results nonetheless and had a great discussion. The enthusiasm was high and several topics came up that I had no idea were issues for them, so that was good. The main issue was that they were all given the same password for their email accounts, and so easily are able to log in as someone else and send inappropriate emails. This has apparently already happened, and we are investigating and working to solve the password problem. Another issue they wondered about was how to block unwanted emails, as some of the students were concerned about Youtube video promotional emails that were appearing in their accounts.

I think doing this at the beginning of each year, at the same time as doing the PBIS lessons and using the school-wide, familiar concepts of “be respectful, be responsible, and be safe” would work very nicely.

Week 4: What issues are associated with digital footprints and living public lives on the Internet? How does the private sector view the importance of digital citizenship?

What issues are associated with digital footprints and living public lives on the Internet?

I like the concept of all of us positively building a digital footprint, and the concept of having this process be guided by conscious principles rather than by random chance. I think currently, with the way I teach digital citizenship at our school, it is mostly a “Just don’t go there!” mentality, and that is no good. It has been all based on how to protect yourself and your identity, and all the things you must NOT share online. I can see very clearly now that I need to reframe the question and the discussion to be all about what we SHOULD share online, and how best to do so regarding age appropriateness and concern for privacy, as well as how to control content and audience. I

When discussing what to encourage our students to include in their digital footprints, I was going to start off with the obvious as a teacher…their best work in various subject matters in school. But I think most teachers are stuck in this traditional concept of school being an isolated part of their day at our own peril. I think our students’ lives outside of school are melding into a combination of their real life and virtual life selves, and schools are not a part of that. These lives they are living are much more interesting, relevant and passion-inspiring than anything we do in school. I see this especially clearly in the early morning before school starts when I open the library to free time before the bell rings. Students are now arriving early on purpose to engage in activities they are passionate about, and then the bell rings. There is a collective moan of disappointment, and they pack it up, and make their way to class. Some are playing online chess, some drawing on Kidpix, some playing online video games, some reading in the corner.

Our school does a good job with technology integration in the classroom, and kids are learning a lot, but very little of it ever leaves the real world of the isolated classroom, and this is what I think needs to be the next step we take.

I feel we should help our students build a digital footprint that includes not only school projects but also involvement with and contributions to websites that relate to their personal interests, links to family members’ and mentors online presences. I like the comments others have made about how thinking of their online presence as a positive thing, and how we need to redirect the past tendency to scare kids about sharing online and instead teach them to act positively and share consciously. I’m guilty of teaching them to just not share info in general unless it’s absolutely necessary, but haven’t taken that other step about what is okay and even desirable to share because I work with such a young population.

I think it would be wise to have this conversation with students, with all staff and with parents about what we want these digital portfolios to look like. Years ago we saved their work in large paper folders and we sent it home with them at the end of fifth grade. Then we moved on to floppy discs. Lately, we have tried posting things on teacher websites to share. My first graders created drawings on Kidpix all about different types of bears, with their voices embedded, exported them to quicktime movies and will be posting them on the teacher’s websites, for example. So it is already happening that we are creating this digital footprint, but we haven’t had the conversation about what it should look like, and when and how children should be identified and credited with their creations. Currently, it is all kept rather anonymous, with first names only being used, and password protected hosting sites for family members only.

We have our 4th and 5th grade students just this year get google drive accounts within our network, and they are busy saving all their various projects and work they created on Google docs, but there is a lot more there we could be using. But I don’t want them to feel like what is in their Google drive is going to be judged, necessarily. I would like them to think of that space as their digital sandbox, where they can play, create, explore. I don’t want them to get paralyzed by the fear of others seeing things in there that don’t necessarily represent their best works. So there needs to be some self-selection on the part of the students to go through their collections of “stuff” and then a way to share only what they want to share at some point.

But then, I think all of this is thinking on my part is so very narrowly focused, and I need to think larger. In his blog article “Footprints in the Digital Age” Will Richardson said, “One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely. The new literacy means being able to function in and leverage the potential of easy-to-create, collaborative, transparent online groups and networks, which represent a “tectonic shift” in the way we need to think about the world and our place in it (Shirky, 2008). This shift requires us to create engaged learners, not simply knowers, and to reconsider the roles of schools and educators.” So I return to the basic concept that we need to engage the students in this dialogue, assist and guide them to “create navigate, and grow” this digital footprint that will figure so prominently in their future.

How does the private sector view the importance of digital citizenship?
I think the private sector is increasingly viewing digital citizenship as a necessary component of any literate person (literate in many various meanings here). I think we are all engaged in a giant experiment of virtual living that is being shaped by all of us participating. The fact that businesses, schools, organizations and individuals are using Google searches to mine data about us leads to interesting moral questions about our rights to privacy and how well we control and shape our online identities. This is why it is urgent to begin the conversation early, and engage our students with these concepts in schools. We as educators will either become part of the conversation and help shape it, or we will become irrelevant and students will side-step around us.

Week Three: Based on this week’s readings/viewing, as well as your own research and experience: 1- How would you modify your existing mission statement to reflect digital lifestyle realities? 2- What would you propose as a digital citizenship mantra?

School District Mission Statement

I was not thrilled when I finally found our school mission statement. I know people probably worked very hard to come up with it, but it just feels blah to me, and was difficult to modify to include the digital aspects. I just tacked something on the end…

Original:

Petersburg Schools will provide a safe environment, promote continuous improvement, and advocate for the highest educational opportunities for all students.

Modified:

Petersburg Schools will provide a safe environment, promote continuous improvement, and advocate for the highest educational opportunities for all students in the local, global and digital worlds.

The end result only talks about providing educational opportunities for students in the various worlds, not how they will behave there. And what does the “continuous improvement” refer to…improvement of the school district, or of the child? I got frustrated by it and decided to look at the Stedman Elementary school mission statement to see what I could do there. It is as follows:

Welcome to Stedman Elementary Library

Our mission is to help students become:

• avid, proficient readers

• effective users of ideas, information and technology

• skillful researchers and problem solvers

• confident, ethical users of information technologies

• critical, media-literate evaluators of information and media messages

I do want to keep the library slant, and the reading component, but the technology part definitely needs updating! I can see that I need to add something to do with creation and self-presentation…self-branding. We need to be assured that students are acutely aware of their role in building their digital footprint and how lasting and powerful that will be. I also need to add something to do with students becoming the creators and the arbiters of whatever the current ethic of digital behavior is as time progresses and technologies change. It is impossible to predict all the new hardware, software, sociological changes that will arise, and so we need to keep it broad and all-encompassing. The key is to keep the students in the forefront of the ever-developing conversation about what it means to be digitally ethical and competent.

So here is a stab at a new mission statement

Welcome to Stedman Elementary Library

Our mission is to help students become:

• avid, proficient readers

• effective, ethical users and creators of ideas, information and technology, in both the real and virtual worlds.

I shortened up the last half as I thought there was a great deal of redundancy. While I am not fully pleased with the result, it’s getting closer. I might just have to ask someone in the class if I can model mine after theirs, as I’ve seen others I like a LOT better, and I don’t believe it’s necessary to reinvent the wheel.  Don’t worry, I’ll ask permission first!

My technology mantra would be: Use technology appropriately, creatively, responsibly, joyously.