Activity 6: Contemporary trends in New Zealand
Step 1 (What):
- Development
of personal skills (Daggett, B., 2014)
This
trend takes precedence over the other trends facing us in education today
because of the importance to an individual and their relationship to the wider
world. If learners make mistakes with this trend it can (and will) stay with
them for life. In our present social media climate what you post can have
serious impacts on ones future. Digital information people provide shapes who
they are, whether they are aware of it or not. Many parents are unaware of what
their children are doing online and (as a consequence) the role of a teacher in
teaching children to be smart digital citizens is of critical importance.
At the heart of it, if children learn to be
respectful, honest, self-aware and decent human beings, and consider the online
world an extension (rather than a removal) of the real world, then they should
be smart and safe online. However, there are still practices that educators can
teach children to help them be safe, such as creating complex passwords,
posting appropriate comments and posts, and being aware of who we are friends
with, to name a few.
Step 2 (So What):
Implementing a programme that includes how to be a
smart digital citizen should be foundational to online learning. The
responsibility lies with educators on how best to do this, as an integrated
plan/unit within other units or as a stand alone unit. As more learning is
shared online through social media, learners need to be aware of their audience
and teachers need to teach students the skills to make the right decisions
online. Providing examples in the classroom of inappropriate posts (comments,
videos, etc.) and together as a class looking at potential consequences is a
good way to engage learners and digitally collaborate to find solutions or
potential ways to prevent damaging mistakes.
The challenge is to implement a programme to an
already jam-packed primary (in my case). This challenge could be met by
integrating into all programmes the idea of having a digital identify,
especially when teaching through the use of an online tool (for example as a
blog in literacy). Teachers can ask learners questions such as “What does
this post say about me as a person?”, “Is this the image I want to project of
myself to others?” or “How do you think the recipient of the comment will feel
if I write/say this?”.
Teaching learners about our core values as decent
human beings and developing personal and interpersonal skills that are vital to
success in our society, such as integrity and honesty, responsibility, respect,
self-management (much of this is covered in our R.E. programme, but is also
covered in the health curriculum in New Zealand), are also important. A learner
needs those fundamental skills in the real world on-goingingly.
Another
fundamental challenge I perceive with online learning is to find the balance in
how much time one spends online, in a social media context. At primary school
in New Zealand it is incredibly important for children to learn to talk and
work with others face to face and to complete some physical activities away
from devices. I personally am just beginning to experience the challenge with
our class having 1-1 digital devices this year, however I am relatively lucky
to be part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme which has an inclusion of
teaching learners to be Smart Digital Citizens. The programme has plethora of
resources aimed at helping learners design and create a smart digital footprint
as well as generate discussion for learners on these topics.
Step 3 (Now What):
Our school community has spent a great deal of time
and effort to look at the existing challenges in the context of emerging
trends. We have a culture at our school that embraces change and works to stay
current, given the resources (or lack of them) at hand. As our school in the
east of Christchurch has been severely impacted by the earthquakes of 2010 and
2011 we were thankfully able to become part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme
as a cluster (the programme is usually only implemented in low decile schools).
This is helping to bring us back in-line with what some of the other schools in
Christchurch area are already doing.
We have to stay current and at present the work with
Manaiakalani goes part of the way to help embrace this, with 1-1 devices in the
Year 7 & 8 class. However, the rest of the learning community has some way
to go, although over the next 3 years the intention is to spread what is
happening in the senior class with the rest of the school, it currently means
that other learners are at something of a disadvantage. A question we should
ask ourselves is “What can we do to mitigate this?” Despite the lack of
devices, other learners in our community can still implement many of the ideas around
being a smart digital citizen for example, learning how to respond using the
‘Positive, Thoughtful, Helpful’ model, which if used by many adults on social
media would save a lot of suffering. Another thought is that other learners
could be viewing the senior blogs and discussing what message the posts are
portraying about the author.
References
Daggett, B. (2014).
Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014
MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
Rolfe et al.’s (2001)
Reflective Model. Retrieved fromhttps://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment
To support my learning I ask you to comment as follows:
1. Something positive - Begin with a greeting. Talk about something you like about what I have shared.
2. Thoughtful - A comment that will mean something to me to let me know you read/watched or listened to what I had to say. - use any language.
3. Something helpful - Give me some ideas for next time or ask me a question.
Encourage me to make another post