Being Internet Awesome?

Photo courtesy of photosforclass.com

Copyrighting Practices

When contemplating the role of educational leaders in the arena of laws and uses of copyrights, I was reminded of Taylor Good’s blog post pertaining to the moral imperative of educators which boiled down to practicing what you preach. Educational leaders want teachers to produce engaging lessons, they should be held accountable to provide engaging professional development. Educational leaders want teachers to be internet awesome, they should be internet awesome themselves. I think this means embracing what teachers like using, for example, Twitter, and using it as a platform for communication but also provide boundaries for acceptable use. This may mean finding a balance between self-expression and potential consequences. If we expect our teachers to communicate this to our students, educational leaders are expected to communicate this to their staff and the best way is to lead by example. This could take the shape of appropriately sharing or citing materials given to staff to the production of the school’s websites, or even creating a creative commons license (check out the footer and create your own).

Dr. Price-Dennis believes it is imperative to raise “awareness of (teachers’) own digital literacy skills so they can prepare students for meaningful participation in complex digital spaces” (Deady, 2017). I believe it is safe to say that a lot of teachers omit or do not completely understand copyrights. I didn’t fully understand it until I took a course en route to a Masters in Classroom Technology. Langwitches.org has created an extensive flowchart to help with this process. This is a case of technology moving faster than education which lends itself to gaps in understanding and learning. Just as a teacher moving too fast through a lesson that results in student confusion, technology has passed many teachers, classrooms, and schools and they are now playing catch-up (hopefully). This happens to both the students and teachers as technology has placed the cart before the horse.

Nevertheless, this falls on school leaders to ensure that this awareness is built into curriculums at the appropriate levels but not only for students but also teachers. Resources like teachingcopyright.org can help with this process. Encourage teachers to take responsibility for their own learning by attending seminars, report findings to staff via blogging, emails, faculty meetings, and even enrolling in online PD courses such as Dr. Price-Dennis’ Digital Learning for the K-8 Classroom. This should be an ongoing learning process as students’ and teachers’ skills continue to be fine-tuned. As teachers and students go from using materials to creating materials, it is important to understand their rights as creators. This should be achieved if they truly understand the copyright process of taking an idea to a tangible form.

My Experiences

Personally, I have little experience with privacy policies and regulations for technology use in my school. I recall from other classes having to review our technology policy which I did again for this post but a larger concern is the integration of technology in our district. Our school still has a ban on cell phones in the classroom and staff members are discouraged to use email as a means to communicate with parents. Though we are as a school using Google Suites, some features are disabled for students including Gmail, Google Hangout, and Google Sites. This may sound archaic, but we do not have any technology course for students K-6. Elementary schools have computer labs but the use and instruction are left solely to the classroom teacher. Cell phones are shunned in classrooms K-8 and I can’t speak on behalf of how cell phones are used in the high school besides Snapchatting. It is certainly a disservice to students.

I take it upon myself to have a discussion of being internet smart when it comes to selecting screen names for online learning platforms such as Kahoot or Quizzizz. I give a presentation on appropriate classroom communications with teachers and students but that is it. Our middle school technology course resembles more closely of that of a keyboarding class.

Protecting the Youth

“While it has the potential to deliver immense value, our online world also comes with inherent risks, particularly for children. The truth is, while younger generations are being labeled as digital natives when it comes to safety they are often no more literate than their parents”(prometheanworld.com). Digital literacy skills are not innate even though many students have had a screen in front since birth (yikes!). So there is a place for the 4C’s to engage safety and responsibility with technology (Dowd, 2017). We need to think critically and evaluate the sources and the news that comes across the user’s screens. Fake news is more than just a cliché or State Farm commercial but is a troubling epidemic. In addition, there should be a chance for creativity as students are given the opportunity to create original content that can be published. With the power of social media, students are communicating via posts and multimedia and do not understand the ramifications of that power. “Communicating responsible is an essential 21st Century skill” (Dowd, 2017).

These communications should not be limited to their classrooms but can be encouraged on a global level. This leads to making meaningful connections with others all over the world. When students can communicate safely and responsibly, it can lead to powerful collaborations that can finds answers to real-world problems or enhance their own work like in the shape of quadblogging. It may be tough but there is a responsibility to our society to properly educate students so they can be safe on the internet and our districts should be role models in the pursuit of being “internet awesome.”