Digital citizenship and teaching cybersafety

"QUICK” magazine is the regular publication of the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education or QSITE. In this issue (QUICK No. 102 Autumn 2006) there is an interesting article on Digital Citizenship. This is a reprint from Learning and Leading with Technology, the ISTE magazine.

The bit that caught my attention was the comments about in the passing a law last year (March 2006) that requires all school districts to integrate the teaching of cybersafety into the teaching of their curriculum.

On the surface this is brilliant, the state has recognised a emerging need and problem and has reacted to this with legislation. There is a clear and urgent need. And the State of Virginia needs to be applauded. Here is what they have said....

“At a minimum, the policy shall contain provisions that

(i) are designed to prohibit use by division employees and students of the division's computer equipment and communications services for sending, receiving, viewing, or downloading illegal material via the Internet;

(ii) seek to prevent access by students to material that the school division deems to be harmful to juveniles as defined in § 18.2-390;

(iii) select a technology for the division's computers having Internet access to filter or block Internet access through such computers to child pornography as set out in § 18.2-374.1:1 and obscenity as defined in § 18.2-372; and

(iv) establish appropriate measures to be taken against persons who violate the policy; and

(v) include a component on Internet safety for students that is integrated in a division's instructional program.

The policy may include such other terms, conditions, and requirements as deemed appropriate, such as requiring written parental authorization for Internet use by juveniles or differentiating acceptable uses among elementary, middle, and high school students

”http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?061+ful+CHAP0052+pdf

Will the concept turn into practice. Will teachers who are less cyber-savvy just turn away from integrating ICT into there classes? If they followed Thousand and Villas model “managing complex change” - what are the goals and objectives, are there resources, an action plan, incentives and skills training.

Who is teaching the teachers to be “cyber-safe” themselves ? Teachers need to be Role models, they need to have an understanding of cyber-safety, be aware of the risks etc. They need to display positive behaviours not just state negatives. Are they given the skills?

Are the goals of the programme clearly defined? What are the behaviours that are identified Because it is integrated rather than a “cyber-safety” course/subject it becomes harder to define these clearly? VDOE has provided guidelines for this at http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Technology/OET/internet-safety-guidelines-resources.pdf

What resources are available? The VDOE - Office of Educational Technology (http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Technology/OET/internet-safety-guidelines.shtml) has produced some guidelines and related resources. The related resources is good, its 18 pages of sites related to cybersafety. This is a great start! The base article on digital citizenship from ISTE also has some resources.

1.

NetAlert (http://www.netalert.net.au)

2. i-Safe (http://www.isafe.org)

3. ID the Creep (http://www.idthecreep.com)

4. NetSmartz (http://www.netsmartz.org)

5. BlogSafety Forum (Blog-Safety.com)

6. Cyberethics, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity Institute (http://www.edtechoutreach.umd.edu/C3Institute/),

7. digital citizenship (http://www.educ.ksu.edu/digitalcitizenship/)

What other resources are available? Can you add some to these? I have added related resources to my wiki. Lets add more and comment on the value of these.

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com

This promises to be interesting to watch

Managing Complex Change

My principal often tells me that one of the hardest tasks we have as educators is integrating ICT into our curriculum. I would say for one of the two cohorts in the school this is correct, for the teachers. However for our students its as natural as breathing. Prensky hit the nail on the head with digital natives and digital immigrants. I only have to look at my students using predictive texting on their cellphones to quickly regain my immigrant status.

For us to successfully integrate ICT, we need to manage the change and the best resource I have found for this process came from a paper by J. Thousand and R. Villa, called Managing complex change towards inclusive schooling. This table sums it up for me:

Vision +	Skills +	Incentives +	Resources +	Action Plan	= Change
	Skills +	Incentives +	Resources +	Action Plan	= Confusion
Vision +		Incentives +	Resources +	Action Plan	=Anxiety
Vision +	Skills +		Resources +	Action Plan	=Resistance
Vision +	Skills +	Incentives +		Action Plan	=Frustration
Vision +	Skills +	Incentives +	Resources		=Treadmill

For each of these we have to ask some questions.

1. Vision.

• What is the guiding vision?
  
• Does it provide valid goals and objectives?
  
• What are the goals and objectives?
  
• Is it a shared vision? has everyone bought into these?
  
• Are these goals achievable, measurable and manageable

2. Skills

• What skills are needed?
• What skills do the staff/community have?
  
• What skills will the staff/community be provided with?
• How will you provide them?
  
• What support systems, processes etc are staff/community provided with?

3. Incentives.

• What are the incentives for adoption of the project?
  
• are they:
• tangible - financial, temporal, classroom facilities or
  
• intangible - recognition, prestige, personal achievement

4. Resources.

• What are the resources that are available?
  
• Are they suitable and appropriate?
  
• Are they reusable, flexible, engaging, portable?
  
• How are they distributed or accessed?
  
• Do they through availability and distribution enhance integration and adoption?
  
• What resources are you going to add?
  
• Is the distribution of resources equitable?
• Do the resources suit the needs of all aspects of the community?
  

5. Action Plan.

• What is the action plan?
  
• Has the staff/community been involved in developing this? Have they bought into this?
  
• Is it valid given the rapidly changing nature of the ICT?
• Is it measurable and manageable?

With each phase we also need to ask who is accountable and how do we measure this.

I also like to apply the KISS rule:

Keep It Simple (you can add in the last S)

Is it easy, no; Is it possible? yes and is it worth it..... Indeed!

If one of the elements above is missing you will be a little like the dog chasing his tail

Can you add to this? http://edorigami.wikispaces.com