My Major Project – An Outline

Since this class began, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time thinking about my major project.  What would I like to do?  What do I have time to do?  What do I have an interest in finding out more about?  I feel like I’m pretty tech-savvy and the idea of researching more about the apps we use daily was intriguing, but what I finally settled on was developing some media literacy and digital citizenship resources for my classroom.

Anyone who know me, knows I’m a planner.  I LOVE unit and lesson planning – I think it’s fun to create different projects and plan out how to teach students different topics, and I get to be creative which is my favourite part.  Just ask Brad how insanely organized my courses are.  The best part about planning is everyone does it differently, and has their own approach and I love how two people can look at the same curriculum, and interpret it so differently, and design units and lessons that are totally different, yet address the same ideas.

So back to my topic.  I have decided to go with option one: development of a curriculum-supported digital citizenship/literacy resource.  I made this decision because 1) I like planning, and 2) I have noticed there are less sources directed to high school media literacy and digital citizenship explicitly.  I think it would be very beneficial for myself to create a resource package to use in my classrooms and share with other teachers as well.  My starting point will be to investigate a course I’ve become very familiar with over the last 4 years: ELA B30.  This course has become my baby and I have tweaked and perfected it over the last four years I’ve taught it.  I don’t know why, but I’m never satisfied and I find there is always another outcome I feel like I need to hit in a better way, which leads into how digital citizenship fits in.  The curriculum states: “View, comprehend, and evaluate critically a variety of visual and multimedia texts by international, including indigenous, artists and authors from various cultural communities, and identify how the texts address beliefs, values, and power” (CR B30.2) which leads into lots of conversations about critically viewing and evaluating the world we live in.  I think this outcome would be an excellent fit for some knowledge on digital citizenship and media literacy.  Then there is the outcome: “Create a visual or multimedia presentation that suits the topic, purpose, and audience; teaches others about a global social issue; and persuades them to act on the issue in a responsible manner”(CC B30.2) which I believe fits nicely into the topic of media literacy for an upcoming generation.  This curriculum is wide open to interpretation and that’s why I think it’s a perfect fit for this project.

To begin more indepth research for this project, I’m going to start by looking closely at some other resources out there, and evaluating them. I’ve already found a couple on Twitter!  I may even organize my unit and plans in an LMS, like Google Classroom since it is a platform I’m familiar with and will use often.  I will also be checking out Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship.

To make sure I stay on track and am within Saskatchewan’s guidelines, I will be looking at the Saskatchewan’s Digital Citizenship Continuum and the Saskatchewan’s Digital Citizenship Policy Planning Guide as per Alec’s recommendation.

Wish me luck!! 🙂

Shelby