All students will need to be digitally literate in order to be successful in school because so much of our learning is technology based. They will need to be digital citizens. I like how ITSE defines this citizenship, “Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical. “ The California Department of Education website defines a digital citizen as “a member of a worldwide community linked by the internet” and repeats the same idea as ISTE with the need for students to be “safe, legal, and ethical” and how to protect themselves online. ITSE also describes the Empowered Learner as a student that can “leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals”. An empowered learner- yes! This is what we want for all our students. We want them to be lifelong empowered learners, but in reality some of them are powerless. Our delivery system for education is relying more and more on technology, and some kids don’t have access to or are not savvy with how to use it. At my school we have had a digital LA and math curriculum for several years, and all kinds of technology based lessons and testing. This year we adopted an online science curriculum. If a student doesn’t have decent wifi at home it will be so frustrating and challenging to complete homework or make-up work. This is a huge equity issue. On the California Dept of Education website there are all kinds of articles about the “Digital Divide Taskforce”. The video from CUE conference 2018 with keynote speaker Rafranz Davis sharing her own personal experience with not having technology or wifi at home for her son during a time period in her career really emphasized to me what I know some of my students are experiencing right now. As I teach my classes online I am just so aware of the kids that are so comfortably sitting in their quiet, well lit bedrooms, with full access to the internet without any glitches or distractions, compared to my other students that have a storm of sibling activity around them and wifi that drops them out of the meeting every few minutes and takes so long to load our online science curriculum that they often can’t pace with what we are doing. The learning gap just gets wider. I know our district has provided a lot of hot spots to deal with the wifi issues but I still have students that are struggling to just get online. One of my students was told they are out of hot spots. We are troubleshooting like crazy but I feel like I am so out of my league. My husband is a computer consultant and troubleshoots for companies all day long. Sometimes when he overhears me trying to help my kids with computer issues it baffles him. It seems like our IT department will need to expand in order to deal with the basics of the digital divide- getting the kids online! The wifi at my school is great so I am anxious for students to return to campus so they can at least have some part of their learning time free from wifi issues.
The first part of the equity equation deals with access and the other half deals with implementation. When I first looked at the K-12 Technology Scope and Sequence I was shocked! Things that students are supposed to master by 5th grade are still new to them in 7th grade. Spreadsheets, multimedia and presentation tools, research techniques, data tools, and simulations, plus digital citizenship is all listed under “mastered” by 5th grade. From what I am experiencing with my 7th and 8th graders, I think we do not have an effective implementation plan for these standards. I can tell some kids have had technology training, others have not. The kids that have not just start a step behind their peers on multimedia projects. Last week I did my hyperdoc lesson on digital citizenship and focused on the safety information. While they all understood the dangers of cyberbullying, most of them also confessed to using the same password for all their accounts. If we are going to rely on technology to help us deliver and evaluate learning, we simply must dedicate time to the implementation of the technology standards in order to keep our kids safe and to create equity in our learning communities. Some people suggest having a Tech Week where a lot of these standards would be taught across different content areas. I know some schools do this with Art during one week a year so that may be something to experiment with. I think for me, nesting technology standards within my lessons makes a lot of sense. Certain standards are especially connected to science like creating and analyzing datatables and also being able to identify quality news and research sites. I have been doing a lot of multimedia teaching during distance learning so that students can create models for science digitally.
2 Comments
Amy Bardwell
10/13/2020 06:06:36 pm
Betsy: Thank you for your insight. Rafranz Davis personally views on equity also spoke to me. When she was talking, I thought of many of my students during this virtual learning formats. I had a student that kept turning her screen off and on and did not want to engage in the learning. After reading this week, I realized that maybe she didn't want kids to see her house or her bedroom. After I told her that she could have her camera off, but had to talk to me; she did! We have had a great week of her engaging after me just saying you don't have to turn your camera on! I agree with you that access is a huge issue!
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Scott Marsden
10/26/2020 05:43:04 pm
Betsy,
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AuthorHello! Welcome to my blog! This will be a fun place to share thoughts about teaching and learning. I am a middle school science teacher at Redwood. When I'm not teaching, I'm hanging out at home with my family or enjoying nature somewhere in the valley. Archives
March 2021
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