To teach digital citizenship & literacy, we must be digital neighbors

I was fortunate to be accepted into the Stockholm cohort (#SWE17) of the Google Innovator Academy (#GoogleEI). The focus of my work for my Innovator project is students' digital media literacy (or lack thereof). Based on the SHEG report, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning, and other reading I have been doing about this topic, I initially thought the focus of my work would be on developing students' capacities for unpacking, critically examining, and making meaning of the myriad of digital texts that flood their social media feeds. Following the protocols the Innovator team outlined for us in advance of attending the Academy, I quickly realized that I had a different -- but related -- issue to tackle before addressing student digital literacy. That is, the lack of social media, and thus digital media not curated by a teacher, that is used or experienced in the classroom. Until teachers embrace social media as a teaching, learning, and communication tool, students will not have an opportunity to be guided in the development of their digital literacy. Thus my project: social media think tanks for any classroom. You can learn more about it at my site: Mediated Messages.

Here is my 90 second elevator pitch:

For many years I have sat through faculty meetings where district lawyers have warned us about our social media presence and connections with students. I suspect that the concerns that inspire those cautionary meetings and the policy that as educators we may not be social media friends with our students will result in push back against my project. Yet, I think it is possible for it to work. In fact, if we really mean we want to teach students positive habits of digital citizenship, then it is essential that we interact with them in digital communities.

My daughter is a field hockey player. Her team, like most other teams of which I am aware, self-organizes in a closed Facebook group. All current team members are invited as are the coaches and parents of current players. Announcements are made in this forum, pictures of games and spirit days are shared here, encouraging messages about upcoming games are offered. I am an active contributor to this group even though I am not Facebook friends with most of the group members.

I am also a member of professional Facebook groups like ALA Think Tank and Future Ready Librarians. Again, I contribute to the discussions that happen in these groups. I learn from the postings made by group members and I am not "friends" with most of the people in that group. The posts I make to my page, that are shared with my friends, are not part of that forum. In that way, I can keep my personal and professional postings and communities separate.

Twitter is another social media platform on which I am rather active. I follow many people and many of them follow me as well. There are many people with whom I engage in discourse via hashtags but we do not follow each other. My habit when it comes to Twitter is only to follow people's professional feeds. I do not use Twitter for personal posting. And, by following a hashtag, I can learn from people who contribute to that hashtag discussion without following their entire feed.

As I see it, the use of closed Facebook groups and hashtags allows teachers and students to interact on social media and still maintain a separation of their personal lives. Further separation can be achieved by the creation of classroom accounts. How ever teachers and administrators choose to structure conversations -- many athletic coaches have already figured it out -- we aren't really teaching digital citizenship or information literacy if we aren't digital neighbors.

Teaching Digital Citizenship Starts with Empathy

In my last post I commented that the challenge of teaching cyber citizen students to be good digital citizens is helping them create space, a moment of reflection, between stimulus and response. Teaching them to be mindful. We need to help our students to approach every digital interaction with the same caution that they might employ when they hear the buzz of a tattoo needle. Building empathy is the key to helping students hit the pause button rather than acting (or posting) on impulse.

I have long been a fan of the This I Believe series. When I was a social studies teacher I used these essays as models of personal essays and helped students deconstruct the stylistic and rhetorical devices employed by the authors of these essays. By carefully selecting models, I was providing my students with essay exemplars, for sure, but also with models of good judgment and lessons about being part of a community. One of my favorite This I Believes is "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude" by Sarah Adams. I can almost recite her essay from memory.

Adams' essay is making an appearance in the digital citizenship lesson we are delivering next week. After we listen to the NPR recording of Adams reading her essay. Students are going to talk about her four principles that underpin her belief in coolness to the pizza dude: "Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in humility and forgiveness.... in empathy.... in honor and it reminds me to honor honest work.... [and] in equality." We are going to ask them to consider not just her principles, but the examples she uses to explain and explore her principles and discuss which ones matter to them.

Next we are going to explain the concept of mindfulness and point out that it is embedded in Adams' discussion of her relationhip with the pizza dude and ask students what strategies they do or can employ when they are interacting with someone (actually or digitally) to be mindful, be "cool". This question is a lead into having them break into small groups and access the community guidelines for Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat and identify where in those companies standards they can find Adams' principles.

Now we can bring it back to our school. Posted in every classroom and elsewhere throughout our building are the schools core values and beliefs.

All members in the... community engage in a collaborative, learning partnership that empowers... graduates to inquire, interpret, and communicate in and across disciplines using a variety of media. We share common beliefs and values that guide all community members in demonstrating civic and personal engagement, both in and out of the classroom. We strive for academic excellence and personal development through a safe and supportive school climate.

Students will compare this statement with the tenets published by the social media companies and, again, Adams. They will collect their thoughts on a set of Google slides which can be printed and posted in the actual classroom and posted as community agreements in the teachers' Google classrooms.