Edmodo – 21st Century Educator

Digital Citizenship

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Mrs. Ruiz

digital citizenship EduBlogsClub Prompt #28:

Prompt: Write a post about digital citizenship

How do you teach students about being good digital citizens and appropriate behavior on the web?

Have you had any specific experiences related to students, behavior, and the web?

How do you think that digital citizenship is related to in person citizenship?

What would you add to the list of digital citizenship elements and why?

How have positive and/or negative experiences online influenced your digital citizenship values?

Digital citizenship has always been important to me as an educator. I recall very clearly the last year I was in the classroom (2015), that I promised myself I would make digital citizenship a priority despite the lack of significant technology in my classroom. My students deserved it. They needed online skills. What I mean by lack of significant technology is that my classroom of 30ish 4th graders had 4 desktop computers and we had computer lab time for only a fraction of the school year when state testing or district testing was not occurring.

Despite the lack of a 1:1 or a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative, I was able to teach digital citizenship. A safe way to do this was the use of Edmodo. It was safe for me as an educator because it was a district approved site and designed for student use. I took computer lab time to teach my students the ins and outs of Edmodo and they were very excited to use it. Because of our limited tech situation during the school day I fully expected most of the true interactions to happen at home where students were free to use their own devices. And use their own devices they did! It amazed me how quickly some of my students became cyber-bullies. It was shocking really and a very teachable moment. I would monitor Edmodo anytime I had the chance to, which meant several times a day during the school day as well as during my own time. I would then deal with any troubling issues like cyber-bullying as well as praise students for their creative ways of using the online setting in a positive way and related to their studies. I would always take a bit of class time to highlight things on Edmodo I had observed, the good and the bad. Mind you, I was careful to avoid publicly shaming students who had succumbed to cyber-bullying, but I did not avoid talking openly about it. We had very healthy conversations in class about what was good online behavior and what was not. I think it helped students to better understand what was bullying behavior and what was productive online behavior. It also helped students connect online interactions to their educations and not strictly social places to goof off.

I have been an ISTE member for a long time and have even managed to attend a couple of ISTE conferences. I highly recommend membership for all 21st Century Educators. They have amazing standards for Administrators, Educators, and Students that truly and clearly outline what sorts of goals we should have in all of those roles in today’s educational landscape. It has been the ISTE standards for students that has guided my instruction and motivated me to be creative and not let my limited resources prevent the instruction of digital citizenship.

I have been fortunate to have had many incredibly positive experiences online. The various platforms that exist to broaden our horizons and truly make us all global citizens is astounding. I want my students to be able to partake in that digital and global community and not only benefit from it, but contribute to it. That is why I teach digital citizenship with every opportunity I get.

Since I no longer have my own classroom, I have one active and ongoing student, my son: a 7th grader at Connections Academy, a public online charter school. Digital citizenship is a daily occurrence for him as his entire school day is spent online. He attends live lessons daily, which look more like interactive webinars for those familiar with such things. He interacts with his friends online as well, largely via Skype and whichever online game they happen to be playing.

Choosing online school was a family decision and took some rearranging of our lives. First and foremost I did not feel he was benefiting from what I call a “traditional” schooling within my own school district. Others in the online schooling community call it “brick and mortar” schooling. Either way, my son was falling through the cracks and also had to deal with escalating bullying. To make matters worse, he was officially diagnosed with depression and anxiety. As an online learner myself (I completed my second Masters degree online and am currently working on my doctorate online), and someone passionate about online learning, I knew this was a viable option for my son’s education. I believe online learning has been successful for my son and my family thus far (we started this school year). It did require my mother moving back in with us (which she was going to do anyway) so that my son could have some supervision during the day while my husband and I are at work. However, I have never had his schooling be so transparent. I know exactly what he is working on and how to swiftly and easily reach his teachers. His current grades are only a click away and always up to date. My son is using technology all day long which is helping his digital citizenship skills tremendously and helping him work on the other standards that ISTE outlines for students.

I don’t believe the teachable moments I have with my son about digital citizenship are any different than I had with my students in the classroom. The only difference is perhaps I am a bit more direct with my son as the filter that teachers need to use with children that are not their own is not necessary when it comes to talking to my own child.

How do you teach digital citizenship to your students? How do you teach it to your children? Is it the same? Different?

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Edublogs

Social Media

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Mrs. Ruiz

EduBlogsClub Prompt #19:

Prompt: Write a post about social media

Here are some possible topics to help get you started:

Do you use social media to share with parents or your school community?

How have you used social media in the classroom with students?

How do you use social media to make you a better teacher?

Do you have guidelines that you use with students?

Have you experienced a story related to the use of social media?

What do you think is next for the use of social media in education?

I just recently noticed that my Twitter account is 10 years old this month. I smiled when I noticed that, and proceeded to tell my husband who simply looked at me with an expression that conveyed “So what?” For me, being on Twitter for 10 years and having over 3,000 tweets seemed to be a milestone. While Twitter isn’t the only form of social media, I have to say it is my favorite for getting news and information related to my interests as a mother, educator, and voting member of society. I had long found traditional news sources unappealing. Newspapers and local news broadcasts always seemed to highlight the tragic crimes people commit against one another, instead of spending more time highlighting the good things happening in our local community and beyond.

I had to pause a moment as I wrote this post to reflect on what it was that got me on social media 10 years ago. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was my involvement with the Discovery Educator Network. (I just visited that link and my photo is still on the home page! 🙂 ) It was just over 10 years ago that I came to work at my former school site. I had transferred sites craving the opportunity to work with passionate and innovative educators, and I was not disappointed. Within the first year at my former school site I was introduced to the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) and my world exploded…in a good way. I had an incredible amount of access to educators outside of my immediate site and their wealth of edtech knowledge. I learned about Web 2.0 tools and was able to go to summer institutes where we learned all about the latest and greatest app or program to use with students, and how to use it effectively. It was because of the DEN that I bothered with Twitter at all. It was because of the DEN that I was taught the power of social media and how I could harness it for my own professional development. I had a virtual PLC before I even knew what a PLC was. If you have never heard of the DEN, I highly recommend you check out their website.

My Twitter account is something that has always been open to parents for the following, but I don’t recall any parents ever following me. I think that was largely due to the fact that I taught elementary school and many parents were not thinking about social media much, and the few that were and were on social media were not interested in following their child’s 3rd grade teacher. For the longest time I tried to keep my Twitter strictly education related, but over the years I have allowed it to represent more of who I am as I share and retweet things related to non-education things.

I don’t like creating multiple social media accounts as they get overwhelming to manage very quickly, but I did use my own Twitter account on several live virtual field trips I took my students on in order to participate in the discussion. I would live tweet and project the hashtag for my students to see and they were always excited to see themselves as a part of the global discussion, if only through my Twitter account.

Being that I taught young students and knowing the importance of teaching them digital citizenship, I embarked on using Edmodo in my 4th grade classroom. It was my hope to use it as a safe school pseudo-Facebook. I used it for everything. We had discussions there, we all would post things for discussion, respond to one another, etc. It amazed me how quickly a couple of my 4th graders became “trolls.” It was a very valuable learning experience for everyone involved. The experience opened up a real dialog on what it means to be a good digital citizen. My school district does not have an official learning management system (LMS), but Edmodo is the closest LMS tool that we have. I would highly recommend that teachers of any level use something like Edmodo or their district’s LMS to be able to safely mimic social media and teach their students valuable lessons in digital citizenship.

How do you use social media in your personal or professional life? Share with me in the comments below. 🙂

EdTech Experiment, Graduate Studies, My Opinion

21st Century Learners

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Mrs. Ruiz

I am presently attending online classes at Grand Canyon University to earn my Master’s in Educational Technology and I am very excited about the way it is already getting me thinking. It was just what I had hoped for in bringing back some of my passion for teaching had been killed due to the drastic cuts in funding for education. The following is one of the discussion questions I had to reply to and my response. If you are interested in the link I am referring to, it can be found on the right side of this page under “Graduate Studies.”

“Based on the Standards for 21st-Century Learners, how prepared are students for using technology in their daily lives after leaving your classroom? What improvements might you make in your curriculum? Provide specific examples.”

First off I was quite impressed with the depth and detail contained in this brochure by the American Association of School Librarians. I don’t think I have viewed libraries in the way outlined in the brochure and that is an error on my part. I do believe that my impression of the libraries I have access to is that they are (like my school) limited in what they can serve the community due to funding. There is ONE library in the city in which I teach that is anything at all like what the brochure describes, but that is because it is a relatively recent addition to the city having opened in April 2008.

As to the discussion question, I feel like a broken record at times as I consider my response to this, but being that is a new class I will reiterate. My students were much more prepared for using technology in their daily lives after leaving my classroom about 4 or 5 years ago when my school had the funds to expose them to those technologies. Technology needs replacing and updating, and with all of the reductions in education, my school did not and continues to not have the funds to buy new technology for the students to interact with. As technology slowly shriveled I took it upon myself to do what I could to continue to expose my students to current technology. I am a lover of technology and while I am not one of those that will run out and buy every latest gadget, I do invest in those that I feel will serve me in some way in both a personal and professional way. This was the case when the iPad first came out. My family invested right off and I looked for ways to bring this to my classroom. I bring my iPad to school every day and have not only taught with it, but have had students create with it. Granted, 32 third graders and ONE iPad is a bit of a challenge, but at least I was exposing them in some small way to what possibilities there are. I share applications with my students and they are always surprised that they too can have the application I am using. I often have parents asking me about applications and referencing their child telling them about me using it in class. I love when that happens!

Just the other day I asked my students how many knew how to use a touchscreen…whether it be a tablet or otherwise and every hand went up…32 hands! That wasn’t the case a few years ago. I recall I had students who had no idea how to interact with a tablet and I was amazed at how quickly things change.

After years of being disappointed and frustrated at the technology situation at my school, I have noticed more and more families have access to the technology I would like to use in my classroom. While my district has not embraced the BYOD (bring your own device) notion, I am working on doing it my way in creating an online tech club. Essentially I will use my class website, Discovery Education and Edmodo to create assignments that enhance the curriculum that students can do at home with the technology they have access too, and with the aid of their parents. I of course would be accessible for help as well.

As to a specific example, March is Women’s History Month. I would expose my students to text and video to build and enhance their knowledge on the subject. I would then build an assignment within Discovery Education where students use the Board Builder feature (much like Glogster) to meet the following common core standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Students would share their completed “boards” with one another as well as present them to the class as well as other audiences.

Discovery Education: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/

Edmodo: https://www.edmodo.com/

Womens History Month: http://womenshistorymonth.gov/

Glogster: http://www.glogster.com/

I will be developing this idea along with the structure of Dorothy Grant’s Online Tech Club, so stay tuned!

~ Mrs. Ruiz