Teaching Digital Citizenship is crucial at all grade levels and something we are trying to do more of all the time at our school and in NLPS as a whole. Projects like GeoScape one, which involve collaboration and technology, provide us with some unique opportunities to develop Digital Citizenship skills which we have done our best to take advantage of.
One resource we have found particularly useful is Mike Ribble's Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. The format is clear and accessible and a lot of other work is based off of his. Through the GeoScape project, we have had many opportunities to include aspects of Digital Citizenship and have spun a lot of this off of his work.
One interesting aspect has been digital communication. Because we are working with two classes who are in different blocks, we have leveraged Google Classroom to allow groups to communicate with each other between Earth Science and Photography. Though students are certainly effective at many methods of digital communication, many lack skills to collaborate and communicate in a more formal way, and this has provided an avenue for this teaching.
We have also, through new technology available from SET-BC, built digital literacy in our students. Learning to operate new technology, in both the GoPro cameras and Microsoft Surface tablets, has forced some of our students outside of their comfort zones and given them new skills. It has also been gratifying and inspiring to see students work together and collaborate to discover how to best utilize the new technology.
Perhaps the most important aspect of our project, however, has been digital law. Students are very used to creating research presentations and pulling images from the internet, which is easy but of murky legality. In this case, by taking our own images the groups have ownership. Interestingly, the Earth Science students have had to acknowledge that the Photography students actually own the photos. This has created some valuable conversations and has created a deeper understanding in our students on how copyright law works and why it important.
We want to teach Digital Citizenship everyday, but it's not always an easy fit. In this project, we have had multiple opportunities to teach and reinforce important concepts, and have (hopefully!) inspired some deep learning in the process.
