According to Common Sense Media “Digital Media is part of Media Literacy”. Both of them together are included in the idea of Information literacy which is “the ability to effectively find, identify, evaluate, and use information from the internet, smartphones, video games and other non-traditional sources.” This website also gives us good pointers as to what our students need when using digital resources such as the ability to search effectively, to protect their and others’ private information, to credit others’ work, understand what a digital footprint is and respect others’ thoughts and opinions.
This is a huge range of topics to teach our students, but it is most important that they are aware of these things when using the internet. Our school has an advisory program, and in August as the Freshman enter the school one of the first topics they cover is digital citizenship, the honor code and plagiarism. This is a great introduction, but the time allocated is quite small, say only 20-30 minutes for each session, which still leaves a lot to be taught be individual teachers. Where I teach we use Schoology as our platform, but teachers are at various stages of using technology – some use it sparingly, whilst others use it every day. I personally do use technology every day with my students, as I find it really enhances our lessons and gives us the ability to really do something different. However, having read through the information that we really do need to impart to students, it is somewhat daunting! I would normally approach digital literacy on a need-to know basis – ie depending on the assignment in questions and I hope that students have acquired the basics from their advisory sessions and experiences at middle and elementary schools. In French 1 we do very basic presentations, for example students talk and give basic facts about their pets or they choose a city in France and present information about it to the class. All presentations have clear rubrics that students have to follow and adhere to if they want to get the maximum points for the assignments. When students presented about their pets, they needed very minimum information from the internet, since most of the photos had been taken by them. However, some students did need images, so we reviewed why it is necessary to give credit to sources and how we should go about citing them. I have a presentation of my own and show them how the copyright should be given on the images themselves and then in the bibliography at the end of the presentation. Students discuss the MLA format and how to implement it. Students are also made aware of the website Easybib, which they can use to help them cite their sources, and are shown how to look for information and to not give away personal information to websites. In Spanish 4 my students tend to do cultural presentations on topics such as Hispanic Music, poetry or different Spanish-speaking countries of their choice. Again I give them an outline for the project with a rubric to follow. These students are mainly Juniors and Seniors so they do have a lot more experience with the internet as opposed to the Freshman. I tend to review how to cite sources using the MLA format, even though I know they do this in other classes, and sometimes I give them links to websites where I know they will get accurate information. I know that I probably need to do more, since the use of technology is growing more and more in our everyday classrooms, but it is a question of balancing the time we devote to that compared to our own subject matter. It’s a tough call!
1 Comment
Scott Marsden
2/25/2019 05:10:43 pm
Natasha,
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AuthorI am a French & Spanish teacher at Justin-Siena High School wanting to get new ideas to motivate my students. Archives
March 2019
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