Dear Teachers,
In my previous post, I described the evolution of a project I started on a while back. Several years ago, I created an infographic that seemed to capture the experience of many of us in what I call the “digital citizenship conversation” regarding how teachers often evolve in their understanding of digital citizenship. Over the past several months, I updated the infographic to reflect what I now think of as educator choices, rather than just educator attitudes. After all, the realities of the pandemic pretty much removed the choice about whether to use digital tools and replaced it with how to use them.
When I finished the 2nd infographic, I looked at it and thought to myself, “So what?” and I worried that perhaps it was stale and irrelevant. A colleague suggested that it could help librarians and coaches who want to elevate dig cit on their campuses to reflect on how to communicate with educators in each of the three brackets. She thought it could be useful in helping to guide teachers toward more sophisticated ways of thinking about digital citizenship. So I iterated again, and the newest version currently contains placeholders – that I hope to fill in soon – for ways that coaches might encourage educators to make more “advanced” choices about how they discuss issues of digital citizenship with their students.
I’ve already shared this “3.0” version with some members of my PLN and have gotten some feedback about how it might be used. One colleague noted that it can be pretty effective for coaches to develop materials to be “inserted” into teachers’ existing units and lessons. She added that as a coach, “having goals and some sort of mental or official scope and sequence of what you think needs work on in your district helps you figure out where those points of insertion are.” Another observed that educators need to be guided into thinking about how dig cit needs have changed since the pandemic started. A third member of my PLN mentioned that email etiquette is a great starting place for teachers and coaches. It’s relevant to them, and something they might view as worthwhile. Finding other entry points like teaching file management and those dreaded, yet beautiful, Boolean searches that everyone claims they know how to do, but don’t. When starting with necessary digital skills, teachers in any content area can see dig cit as relevant to them. And then perhaps those same teachers can be guided and nudged to address the more sophisticated and nuanced issues of digital citizenship.
I’m still mulling over the additions I’ll make to the “Coaches might…” sections of the infographic, and I’d love to get any suggestions that occur to you. If you have ideas, please reach out on Twitter or leave a comment on this post.
Fondly,
Nancy
Nancy Watson, M.Ed. 