Answer: 1. How can a DLC ensure that citizens within the community have access to an environment where an AUP protects members as well as the community itself, where individuals uphold laws, and a cooperative/collective venture provides robust, safe, and ethical resources and opportunities for learning?
As members of a DLC, students and teachers have the world at their fingertips. This comes with both immense potential as well as the threat of danger. These potential rewards and risks are not inherent to the internet and technology themselves; the internet and technology are neither "good" nor "evil." Instead, the good and the bad, the risks and the rewards depend on the behaviors of the users, their decision of how to interact with others and what sort of content to share.
While DLC leaders cannot necessarily control the content that is already present, we should focus on what we can control (or at least influence): learner behaviors. Enter the AUP.
Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs):
Answers: 2. What is the best way to establish and maintain a flourishing DLC where citizens understand, observe, and are inclined to willingly support and ultimately benefit from Digital Rights and Responsibilities?
As educators, we teach so much more than our content. In fact in order to teach our content, we must spend time teaching, modeling, and enforcing our expectations for performance and behaviors. When it comes to online learning, our approach should include many of those same factors.
PLAN:
The district in which I teach already has a AUP in place that covers classroom technology, internet use, student devices (B.Y.O.D.), and appropriate/inappropriate behaviors. When it comes to teachers' implementation and use of technology, there are no specific expectations about if and how much teachers are to use technology with their students. As a teacher who utilizes the technology a great deal, I believe that involving and educating students in fair and appropriate use is just as essential as teaching and enforcing any other classroom expectation.
I like the idea of communicating "technology values," as outlined on the Common Sense Media resource, "Campbell Hall Technology Values & AUP." As we get to know one another and what's important to each of us, it would be a great time to cover what's important when it comes to classroom values and technology values.
I plan to develop my own lessons on digital citizenship, fair use, and appropriate use to be shared at the beginning of the year and throughout the school year as specific cases arise For example, at the beginning of the year I will cover appropriate use of Google Classroom for accessing materials and submitting coursework as well as how to care for our classroom set of Chromebooks. I will also cover basics of netiquette and how to interact with others in the online environment. But I save more specific conversations and lessons of fair use and the Creative Commons until later in the year when those specific guidelines apply, such as starting our first research projects and reports, etc.
I'm a science teacher, and at the beginning of the year we cover lab safety. This is typically followed by a lab safety quiz, which students must pass with an 80% or better before participating in labs. I plan to incorporate a digital citizenship and safety quiz early in the year as well before we begin implementing technology-infused lessons and coursework. As we cover the expectations for acceptable use and fair use of material, where appropriate, students will be involved in setting classroom expectations and engaged throughout the year as enforcers of the classroom AUP.
As members of a DLC, students and teachers have the world at their fingertips. This comes with both immense potential as well as the threat of danger. These potential rewards and risks are not inherent to the internet and technology themselves; the internet and technology are neither "good" nor "evil." Instead, the good and the bad, the risks and the rewards depend on the behaviors of the users, their decision of how to interact with others and what sort of content to share.
While DLC leaders cannot necessarily control the content that is already present, we should focus on what we can control (or at least influence): learner behaviors. Enter the AUP.
Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs):
- Provide DLC members a safe environment for learning by:
- Delineating the need for cyber safety and good digital citizenship
- Outlining acceptable behaviors/netiquette, as well as inappropriate behaviors
- Establishing boundaries for:
- types of content and technologies that should be used
- how technology/property will be used
- Providing on-going training and education for teachers, administrators, and students that helps all stakeholders stay abreast of the changes and trends in online learning
- Ensure DLC members uphold laws by:
- Teaching good digital citizenship
- Identifying inappropriate behaviors and content usage
- Educating members on the consequences of such actions
- Providing members means of safely -- and sometimes anonymously -- reporting dangerous or inappropriate behaviors
- Collaboratively and collectively provide robust, safe, and ethical resources and opportunities for learning by:
- Educating members in Fair Use and copyright, as well as the use of open resources such as the Creative Commons
- Consistently enforcing classroom, school-wide, and system-wide expectations about Fair Use such as plagiarism, as well as behaviors (cyber-bullying, etc)
- Encouraging learners (including teachers) to be both curators and creators of content to be used for meaningful learning
Answers: 2. What is the best way to establish and maintain a flourishing DLC where citizens understand, observe, and are inclined to willingly support and ultimately benefit from Digital Rights and Responsibilities?
As educators, we teach so much more than our content. In fact in order to teach our content, we must spend time teaching, modeling, and enforcing our expectations for performance and behaviors. When it comes to online learning, our approach should include many of those same factors.
- System-wide and school-wide expectations about rights and responsibilities for DLC members should be communicated in a AUP that is communicated to all stakeholders (teachers, administrators, students, and parents).
- Classroom-level expectations should be taught and modeled from the very beginning, and (where applicable) this should include student-input; involving students in setting expectations leaders to a better understanding of what is expected and greater buy-in when in comes to observing and following the expectations.
- At every level, appropriately behaviors should be recognized and rewarded; inappropriate behaviors that compromise the validity of student work (plagiarism, copy-pasting) or the safety of the DLC or its members (cyber-bullying) should be identified and addressed.
PLAN:
The district in which I teach already has a AUP in place that covers classroom technology, internet use, student devices (B.Y.O.D.), and appropriate/inappropriate behaviors. When it comes to teachers' implementation and use of technology, there are no specific expectations about if and how much teachers are to use technology with their students. As a teacher who utilizes the technology a great deal, I believe that involving and educating students in fair and appropriate use is just as essential as teaching and enforcing any other classroom expectation.
I like the idea of communicating "technology values," as outlined on the Common Sense Media resource, "Campbell Hall Technology Values & AUP." As we get to know one another and what's important to each of us, it would be a great time to cover what's important when it comes to classroom values and technology values.
I plan to develop my own lessons on digital citizenship, fair use, and appropriate use to be shared at the beginning of the year and throughout the school year as specific cases arise For example, at the beginning of the year I will cover appropriate use of Google Classroom for accessing materials and submitting coursework as well as how to care for our classroom set of Chromebooks. I will also cover basics of netiquette and how to interact with others in the online environment. But I save more specific conversations and lessons of fair use and the Creative Commons until later in the year when those specific guidelines apply, such as starting our first research projects and reports, etc.
I'm a science teacher, and at the beginning of the year we cover lab safety. This is typically followed by a lab safety quiz, which students must pass with an 80% or better before participating in labs. I plan to incorporate a digital citizenship and safety quiz early in the year as well before we begin implementing technology-infused lessons and coursework. As we cover the expectations for acceptable use and fair use of material, where appropriate, students will be involved in setting classroom expectations and engaged throughout the year as enforcers of the classroom AUP.
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