Major Project Finale

Well team, we finally made it to the end.  I don’t know about you, but this was a LONG semester, and yet felt like the fastest one ever.  I don’t think any of us could have anticipated the events that unfolded between January and now.  It’s taken its toll of us all, but that doesn’t take away from the amount of information and skills we learned over the semester.  I can say I am very glad to have had the opportunity to learn with all of you and have such a great support group over the past few weeks.  It’s definitely helped with the transitions to our online teaching worlds and I can say I am happy with my final product of my major project.  I’m sure if I had still had students, I would have made a few more adjustments, but overall, I am happy with my Digital Citizenship unit plan I created and used in my ELA B30 classroom this semester.

It all started with an idea: connect digital citizenship with my ELA B30 curriculum.  The outcomes line up nicely, and I have tried in the past, but it’s always been a stand-alone lesson or unit.  This time I wanted to integrate the ideas, start with explicit teachings and eventually work the ideas and strategies into everything we do in the classroom.  Whether it was Shakespeare, literature, or a film, I wanted my students to think about the content critically and ask questions about purpose, techniques, and themes.  You can view my outline here!

Once I had an idea of where I wanted things to go, the planning began.  How do I construct this?  I was incredibly busy in January with basketball, finals, and marking so my project took a backseat, but it was always in the back of my mind, and research ensued.  I began looking at Digital Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools, and more specifically, the Digital Citizenship Continuum from K to 12. This document really helped me morph my topics and essential questions I wanted to address in my unit plan.  I also consulted Mark Ribble and his Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship to help decide which categories I wanted to really focus on.  I wanted to hit them all, but although I managed to create an outline of how to do this throughout the semester, I really focused on three: Digital Literacy, Digital Law, and Digital Rights and Responsibilities.  You can check out my second update here, where I outline more of my ideas and explain how I will integrate each of the elements into my unit plan.  I also reviewed Common Sense Media and Media Smarts because during my research, I found a lot of helpful tips, lesson ideas, and connections on these websites.  You can check out those reviews here and here!

Of course, things don’t always work out the way you want them to, and as I began actually writing out lesson plans and creating projects for my students, I realized some ideas were too big to tackle, but others would work seamlessly.  I wanted to trial all the assignments with my students, and I did until the very end, so I am confident the flow and actual process worked.  I began my semester with our Global Issues unit, and we focused on fact-checking and finding purpose to content.  You can see my next update here I focused my discussion on trying to make our class conversations and projects meaningful.  I wanted this to seep into the rest of our semester, so it was going to take a lot more work to initiate the mindset I wanted for my students.  Finally, things started to come together, and you can see my last update here where I posted my unit outline, connecting my outcomes to my project ideas and to Ribble’s Nine Elements.  I finally had physical assignments, projects, and discussions that my students had even tried already, with examples.

And then we came to a screeching halt.  COVID-19 took over my classroom, and I barely got to finish our presentations before schools were closed and I rushed to say goodbye to my students.  I would have liked to wrap things up properly, get some real feedback and see if the strategies would have taken hold in the rest of the semester.  Hopefully next year I can try it again, make some more tweaks and see how it flows throughout an entire semester.  Before the end though, I had moments where I knew I had made a difference on my students’ digital literacy.  Students were ranting and panicking over COVID and as I tried to calm them down, one student yelled out a statistic (one of those meant to instill fear and panic).  Anther student spoke up, and asked, “But did you fact-check?” and then proceeded to look at me and say, “I’ve been fact-checking everything lately.”  It might not have been a huge thing (who am I kidding? I wanted to scream I was so excited!!), but it meant that I had done something to affect their thinking and how they view the information they find online.  That was the last day of classes we had, and I would say it was a pretty positive note to end my unit trial on, if nothing else.

Overall, I am happy with how my project turned out and you can check out my fully detailed lessons, resources, and unit plan here on Google Classroom.  Use the code: fqyyiyv to log in.  Please check out my graphic organizers for research and solutions, as well as my text critique assignment outline for a couple highlights.  I even created two videos for my students to watch. One on Aristotle’s Appeals, and another on media literacy techniques.  Please watch them and let me know what you think.  Feel free to borrow anything you like, use it in your classroom and give me feedback above all else!!  This unit plan is flexible and can be taught all as one piece or be spread out in a larger unit, integrating poetry, non-fiction, and other literature as well.  I had a lot of fun creating this unit and connecting it to digital literacy in a way I didn’t think I could ever in a grade 12 classroom.  I’m quite proud of it, and hope you enjoy it.

Good luck everyone in your futures and I wish you all the best in these unconventional times.

Until next time,

Shelby

A Real Media Smarts Resource!

I had planned on completing these reviews earlier in March, but as our teaching worlds were turned upside down recently, they are a little later than I would have liked, but no less, here’s another one!  Hopefully it will be of good use to my colleagues and classmates as they embark on their newest remote, online teaching journeys.

Media Smarts is the second resource I would like to review for my major project.  It is another website dedicated to educating children about digital literacy and media literacy, and it’s Canadian!  They have many different types of resources for teachers, for parents, and for kids.  They have an entire section dedicated to Digital & Media Literacy with many different Media Issues like body image, intellectual property, and violence listed.  The website also listed a variety of Digital Issues ranging from authenticating information to cyber security, and online ethics. It also includes general information about digital and media literacy as well as information about video games, movies, and music.

There is a “For Parents” tab that offers many resources for parents to begin talking to their children about media and digital literacy.  There are resource links to blogs, games, tips, guides, videos, and workshops.  This is a great option for parents because I think it is very user friendly and easy to access, especially if you are not 100% comfortable with the topic.  All the links provide detailed explanations and videos on how to discuss certain topics or how to become familiar with different ideas online.  It definitely breaks things down, however I found some of the videos I browsed to be very simple, which can be good if you are brand new to the internet or teaching young kids, but any child older than ten would likely find the videos too simple and childish.

But the part of the website I really want to dig into is the Teacher Resources.  I found this page to be incredibly resourceful and informative when it comes to the different sources and information listed.  There is a Digital Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools which is actually broken down into K-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12.  These then connect to specific lessons and outcomes for students to hit and connects it to a specific framework piece, like ethics and empathy, privacy and security, community engagement, digital health, consumer awareness, finding and verifying, and making and remixing (very similar to Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship if I do say so myself)!  And there are a ton of lessons to choose from to connect to the framework and age of students.  As I scanned some of the example lesson plans, they all seemed age appropriate and suitable for the students they suggested.There is also a page connecting outcomes by province and territory to digital and media literacy which I haven’t seen before.  It goes so far as to break it down by province, and then by subject area and then to specific curriculums.  I was shocked when I decided to look further and found when I clicked on the English B30 tab (since that is the focus of my project) that it listed every outcome digital and media literacy could connect in.  Beyond that, it even gives lesson plans and suggestions for each outcome!  You will definitely need to check this out if you are looking for lesson plans on media and digital literacy in the future!  It’s an unreal library!!

You can also find lessons and resources using the search engine, but I think finding them by outcome or subject to be much more useful.  However, the search is also useful because you may search by resource type like game or guide, topic like aboriginal people or cyberbullying for example or by media type like music or movie for example.  Again, I would recommend checking it out yourself as it’s something I will be using in the future.

I thought for the purpose of this post that I would talk about one of the lessons I found that would fit very well into my already established unit plan.  It’s called Fact Versus Opinion and the overview states:

“This is the fourth of five lessons designed to teach students to think critically about the way aboriginal peoples and visible minorities are portrayed in the press. “Fact Versus Opinion” begins with students discussing the difference between fact and opinion. Students then apply what they have learned to an opinion piece selected by the teacher, and then an opinion piece that they have selected.”

It gives a very clear outline of what is expected of students and gives all the necessary materials for the lesson.  It also includes outcomes for the lesson itself and what students should achieve by the end of the lesson.  The only thing I would mention about the lesson as it does seem a little young for grade 12 (it is recommended for grade 9-12) and would probably need to be adapted a little more for a higher-grade level.  However, you could easily use the provided editorial for a warm-up and gradually make the analysis for the activity more difficult.  Overall, it is a process I would like to use in my classroom.

I was really impressed by Media Smarts resources and I would definitely recommend using their lesson plans especially because they connect so well to Ribble’s Nine Elements and our Saskatchewan curriculum!  Have you used any Media Smarts lessons?  How did it go?

Thanks for reading my review!

Until next time,

Shelby

It’s Common Sense to Use This Resource!

As part of my project, I wanted to evaluate a couple of key resources that have come up a lot in our discussions over the course of the semester.  The first resource I want to focus on is Common Sense Media.  This has been a staple in resources and conversations, with a lot of us directing each other to the website for lessons, resources, and information.  I have used it a few times this semester for information and I find they have an incredible library of questions and answers for both educators and parents.

They have lists of resources for apps, books, movies, and websites all in relation to age level!  But the part I want to focus on is the pieces for educators.  Once you click on the “For Educators” tab, you are taken to a screen with tabs for Digital Citizenship, EdTech Reviews, Professional Development & Advice, Resources in Spanish, and now, Coronavirus Resources.

There is clearly no shortage of resources here and it is well-recognized because of the professionalism, and ease of implementation for the resources.  There is even an Implementation Guide to help teacher integrate these resources and lesson plans into classrooms, schools, and divisions (and it’s free!).  Under Professional Development, there is even a link to a webinar for the Digital Citizenship Curriculum.  This could be very useful for any teacher, whether they are skilled with digital citizenship or just getting started.

Now, to the important segment of this blog post: the lesson plans!  There are a variety of different topics to choose from and you can even filter by grade.  So for the purpose of this blog post, and my major project I am going to focus on the grade 11 and 12 resources.  What I notice right away is that they are definitely age-appropriate topics and would work in a grade 11 or 12 classroom.  I’m sure my students would have enjoyed the conversations that began from the topics.

The lessons are listed below:

• Grade 11
  • Can Media Be Addictive?
  • How Young is Too Young for Social Media?
  • Who’s Looking at Your Digital Footprint?
  • Connecting with Digital Audiences
  • Online Disinhibition and Cyberbullying
  • Clicks for Cash
• Grade 12
  • The Health Effects of Screen Time
  • Debating the Privacy Line
  • The Change You Want to See
  • We Are Civil Communicators
  • Should Online Hate Speech Be Censored?
  • Filter Bubble Trouble

One thing I love about the lesson plans is they give a snapshot right off the bat, telling you the approximate time and a lesson overview.  There are individual links to the lesson slides, handouts, and quizzes.  It also includes take-home resources for family engagement and activities – and it opens in google docs and slides!

My only complaint would be that it connects to standards from the United States, and unfortunately does not connect to other curriculums, however, I think these lessons could have their place in many Saskatchewan curriculums given time and creativity.

I decided to check out a couple lessons I would consider using in my ELA classrooms and I was impressed with the resources as well as the connections made to students their age.  There were applicable questions asked, and examples that I believe would engage students and make them reconsider their online identities without rolling their eyes or replying sarcastically.  I like the maturity of the discussions and the opportunities the lessons allow students to explore within the classroom but that might also extend beyond the classroom walls.

One lesson I really liked was “The Change You Want to See” which I thought connects well with my Global Issues unit in my ELA B30 course, and connects to my major project the best.  It asks, “How can you create a digital footprint that showcases your purpose?”

I like that it focuses on the why of a digital footprint and how it can help find purpose.  It also focuses on thinking about problems students would want to advocate for, and aligning themselves with like-minded individuals online.  This lesson could begin my whole unit plan, and even lead deeper into them campaigning in an online forum for their cause.  The lesson plan outlines everything a teacher needs to prepare, as well as steps to help students make their way through the lesson.  It even lists organizations reviewed by Common Sense Media to help students engage in a campaign, which I think is very important because it takes a little of the weight off the teacher in terms of making sure students aren’t becoming involved in online places that may not be entirely appropriate.

Overall, I would recommend using Common Sense Media for educational purposes, and I think it is age-appropriate, convenient, knowledgeable, and easy to use! I know I will be using it in the future and look forward to the conversations I will have with my students about Digital Citizenship!

Until next time,

Shelby

The Planning is Coming Together!

Hi all!  This week, I put more work into my major project and it is slowly taking shape.  If you need a refresher on what I’ve been up to, check out this blog post.  Basically, I have been planning and using my grade 12s as guinea pigs this semester and the results are almost in!!  I’ve now started putting the pieces together in a formal document for my unit plan, outcome connections, and big questions.  It’s not quite finished, as there are a few attachments I am still working on, but for now, here is my unit outline!

My next steps will be to finish the handouts and videos, and ask a few of my amazing students if I can use their projects as samples!  I will also be creating a resource page for all the sources I have used throughout this project, as well as additional sources I found useful in my hunt for activities and strategies I used.

My original plan was to create a Google Classroom with all the documents, handouts, videos, etc.  but I’m not sure if this is still the route I want to choose. I really love using Google Classroom, but I’m wondering if others would appreciate a working document instead?  Thoughts??

Thanks for checking in and stay tuned!

Shelby

Major Update – Still Under Construction

It’s been awhile since my last update on my major project and I figured it was time to let everyone know what I’ve been up to!  I have been spending lots of time researching, brainstorming, and compartmentalizing how to bring this unit plan to fruition. I didn’t actually think making a unit plan for digital citizenship would be this difficult!  However, I have a plan set to get some physical evidence of my unit plan finished this week.  I have started to outline my unit plan and I have matched my outcomes to Ribble’s Nine Elements as well.  I have goals and vision for what I want my project to be; it’s just difficult to put into words (hence my lack of blog posts lately).  My brain has been all over the place!!

Over the past few weeks, I have been making small tweaks to my ELA curriculum in my everyday classroom.  We began a new semester in February, and it was perfect timing to begin making adjustments.  I’m hoping these adjustments will influence my unit plan as it continues to mold.  One thing I have realized since beginning my project and outlining it, is that I do not want it to be a stand-alone unit plan.  I don’t want to discuss digital citizenship in-depth and then not discuss it again later in the semester.  This has created a challenge in how I approach this formation of the plan.  I have decided to create a few general resources to use at various points throughout the semester, so I can encourage my students to keep thinking about these important topics.  These resources are beginning to look like fact-checkers, and critical thinking questions to challenge my students’ opinions on what they are reading.  I had a “research organizer” I used last year and now looking at it, I know it needs A LOT improvement, so I have been updating it! (Stay tuned!!)

However, the real focus of my unit plan will be setting expectations, discussing online etiquette, and setting up the mindset for our semester which I have decided will be finding valuable sources, fact-checking, as well as recognizing bias in a variety of formats.  Students are attacked with messages, advertisements, and news all day, every day, and I want my students to take a step back from this overwhelming world of data and communication.  As an ELA classroom, we will need to look at more than just news articles and videos but also plays, short stories, poems, and novels.  It is my idea to hopefully incorporate these templates I will create to help my students understand not only how to find valuable sources of research and news, but also understand what the real purpose is of any piece of literature or video or speech.  I want them to become critical thinkers and also more responsible citizens in the online world.  I would be lying if I said our conversations surrounding the Portrait of a Graduate has not left an impact on me.  My students aren’t going to remember Hamlet or the poems we read in two years, but it is my hope I can teach them something about digital responsibility, advocacy, and bias as they move forward in their lives.

A big part of our semester focuses on The Search for Self which I think connects directly to my students figuring out who they are and how they can be better people.  I also discussed in my first update that I will connect this unit to the other unit of focus which is The Social Experience.  It is my hope that I can touch on every one of Ribble’s Elements within these two units.  I have linked each one of Ribble’s Elements to an overarching unit question.  It’s something we spend a lot of time focusing on, and always link our content back to during the unit.

So, my unit plan is definitely still under-construction, but I feel like I’ve made real progress in what I am trying to accomplish.  My next steps will be to finish the resources and link them on my blog for some feedback then create some vlogs for some of the online resources I’ve found to help other teachers with digital literacy!

Stay tuned!

Shelby

Ribble, Green Eggs, and Common Sense!

With final exams ending and my basketball tournament schedule lately, I have definitely not gotten as far on my major project as I would like so far but I’ve made some progress since my last post! My plan is to create a digital citizenship unit plan for my grade twelve English students.  It fits nicely into the curriculum, hitting a couple of outcomes. and I have already done bits and pieces of online citizenship with them in the past but as I have mentioned, it’s definitely an area I know I could be more conscience and explicit with in my teaching. As Leigh stated in her update, I assume my students have the skills to be responsible online citizens and, in some cases, even as budding adults, they lack the necessary skills to be successful. 

I originally thought this unit plan would be a stand alone one, where I only focus on teaching digital citizenship and attempt to work through each one of Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship.  Then as I began planning out a timeline and the lesson ideas, I realized this might be a little too much to take on timewise, integrity wise, as well as curriculum wise.  I’ve decided to pinpoint closer to the skills I know my students both lack and need more experience with which is Digital Etiquette, Fluency, and Rights and Responsibilities.  These ideas I can easily tie into articles, essays, and videos that will help teach my curriculum as well as teach my students about digital literacy.  I’m going to tie it directly into my global issues and social experience unit plan to hopefully teach my students that being globally active and responsible counts both online and in the real world.

These are some of the big issues we tackle in this unit:

As grade twelves, you would expect them to know a thing or two about the online world, but after some discussions in my courses, even over this past week, it is evident they need to learn how to find credible sources for information and be able to evaluate real news from “fake news.”  Tomorrow, I actually plan of having my students critique a text (video or article) for its credibility as well as its argument and persuasive tactics.  I will let you know how it goes! You can check out the assignment here if you would like! I also got some inspiration from this article!

They also live in a bit of a dream world, not expecting what they do online to ever have consequences in the real world, but I think it is important to teach them that they need to be respectful to one another online, because they can be very guilty of spreading a picture or discussing classroom happenings in their ever-expanding group chats on many different platforms.  I’m still processing how to do this all, and it has involved quite a bit of research, looking at different articles and strategies for teaching in a digital world like this article here from Common Sense Education.  The part I am struggling with is that it needs to be authentic and not preachy, so I get the glazed over looks and they forget what I say the minute they walk out of the room.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

The last idea I really want to address in my unit plan is giving credit where credit is due.  As exams ended a couple weeks ago, I was incredibly frustrated grading my grade twelve final essays because guess what?  They plagiarized.  Not all of them, but enough to cost me energy and time, as well as it leaving a sour taste in my mouth leading into second semester.  Some do it on purpose, but in my experience most were never explicitly taught what not to do and this is a problem!  And not just for the students going on into university.  The internet is a vast network and it is important that students learn the value in giving credit to other sources of information online.  Not everything there is free, and it is a skill going forward that could be vastly important in the digital age.  I happened upon this awesome powerpoint, from a colleague, that helpfully explains how not to plagiarize and how to cite properly (Green Eggs and Ham anyone?)!  I am going to start here and hopefully teach them the right and wrong ways to find and give credit to sources in a variety of templates (not just an essay).

Going forward, I have a lot of ideas swirling in my mind, and I think it is important to start thinking about how in the future I will start this topic and unit plan.  My process has so far been a lot of research and a lot of reading.  It’s time to get to the real work in the next week and put these ideas into physical lesson plans and continue critiquing some previously made lesson plans!

Until next time,

Shelby

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