It was a valuable opportunity to have my ethics audits interview with one of the administrators in our school district to learning about digital citizenship education in our schools and community. My interviewee offered me a deeper understanding toward our current practice in digital education, impact on our current digital learning model due to pandemic in students and educators, and school leader’s prospective in digital education.
My interview focused on three cord values that sharped my learning and belief in digital citizenship education and all three values aligned with ISTE standard as below.
Responsibility
7d: Empower educators, leaders and students to make informed decisions to protect their personal data and curate the digital profile they intend to reflect.
Bias awareness
7c: Support educators and students to critically examine the sources of online media and identify underlying assumptions.
7a: Inspire and encourage educators and students to use technology for civic engagement and to address challenges to improve their communities.
Connection
7b: Partner with educators, leaders, students and families to foster a culture of respectful online interactions and a healthy balance in their use of technology.
Here is the flow chat summarized my findings during the interview:
Reflection and Question
After the interview, I realized our current digital learning model due to pandemic created high level of stress to school leaders, educators, students, and families. It is very difficult to separate the current challenges from what digital learning could be in a normal situation. In a normal situation, digital technology could become part of the education experiences instead of becoming the only way to learn and connect. While school district was moving forward in a slow pace to prepare our students and educators to participate and demonstrate digital citizenship, we were certainly not ready to launch and commit to 100% digital learning from kindergarten to high school. However, although we are being forced into full digital learning by the pandemic and many people are experiencing negative impact than positive, I believe the technology tools, distant learning strategies, and teaching practices by using digital devices will continue to show their strength and being used when we can go back to face to face teaching. My journey to understand digital citizenship education just began, I believe all districts and schools will utilized technologies that they invested in, and digital skills students and educators have gained to move forward after the pandemic. I would like to revisit the questions periodically as we learn, grow, and reflect constantly.
Conclusion
Combining the information I learned from my interviewee and my experience working as a classroom teacher, our district has achieved the promise to provide students the technologies they need in digital learning. However, our students are not fully prepared in terms of understanding digital privacy, responsibility, and safety in participating in the digital world. Our district values and promotes anti bias education, especially in supporting students to identify and confront bias in digital information. Finally, our district and all educators are committed to center student connection and relationship in digital learning as well as to reach as many students and families as possible.