Starting the Digital Citizenship Journey
Starting the Digital Citizenship Journey (Uncharted Territory)
The popular saying from John Steinbeck comes to mind as we begin our journey, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it.” As the process of introducing students to digital citizenship at Mazie Gable Elementary School begins, there is a level of excitement and anticipation. The original timeline called for our first steps in digital citizenship to start in September; (this of course was after we collected the data from our needs assessment which you can view by clicking here) however, we were fortunate enough to get an early start, and this created a new and unexpected challenge.
The Red Lion Area School District hosted its 2nd Annual Technology Summit on August 14, 2018, and allowed individuals to submit presentation ideas. The digital citizenship team thought this would be an excellent opportunity to host a round-table discussion on the importance of digital citizenship in the classroom. (A link to our session can be found by clicking here.) Although there were not many in attendance at our session, we were able to speak with the individual in our district that plans our Professional Learning Community topics. This conversation led to our team being asked to present digital citizenship training to all elementary teachers in the Red Lion Area School District for both, September and October.
The next step for our team is collaboratively deciding what we need to present district wide. The difficulty with this new plan to reach all elementary teachers is the lack of ability to follow up with each teacher. Our original plan called for each member of our team to present to one grade level team within the building that we teach. This plan would have allowed us to follow up regularly, answer questions, and help within the classrooms when needed. Our team will still have a primary focus on the specific grade level we originally chose within our buildings, but we need to ensure our district wide instruction is beneficial to everyone.
The most effective way to ensure professional development is beneficial is to encourage collaboration and value of each member’s time, energy, and ideas. After reading, “4 Ways to Build Effective PLC’s” by LaRena Heath, (click here to access article) I think it is extremely important to foster that culture of collaboration over our two or three sessions with each teacher. I additionally want to focus on a stance of complete honesty without repercussions for honest, thoughtful contributions even if they are not entirely positive.
Employees sometimes avoid voicing opinions, disappointments, frustrations, or general ideas to modify or change company’s operating procedures. Instead, these opinions and ideas may progress through the office environment in a series of conversations with other employees, forms of gossip, or underlying internal frustration. If companies really want to evolve and grow, they must be open to hearing the truth from employees, even if it is brutally honest as it is an important step toward building integrity in the workplace.
This paragraph from “The Importance of Honesty in the Workplace” by Klemchuk LLP (click here to access the article) sums up in my opinion one of the biggest hurdles in reaching teachers. I want to ensure the team members in my group understand the importance of honestly explaining the challenges, hurdles, and failures in teaching digital citizenship. This will allow our group to address any issues we may have as we continue teaching the importance of digital citizenship to both our teachers, and our students.
Overall, I am excited to develop our next steps and continue our journey down the path of digital citizenship. My hope is that we are able to avoid as much going “awry” as possible as we continue to prepare our teachers and students to become excellent digital citizens.
