The use of technology has become key in our everyday lives; therefore it is imperative that students adopt digital citizenship and behave on line as they would face to face with an individual. There are two important mottos that we need to instill in our students when online: “Treat others as you would like to be treated, and when in doubt, talk it out” and “if it isn’t right to say it isn’t right to post.” Fortunately for educators, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) have listed standards that they would like to see resources adhere to; games and learning apps, educational learning software, online courses, professional development programs can all apply for the ISTE seal of alignment which can be posted on their website/product if they are compliant. This is a way of helping people know that the resource is trustworthy and aligns with the standards set out by ISTE.
I teach both French and Spanish to grades 9,10,11,12 and generally I ask students to research using the internet when they are going to work on a project and gather potential information about topics of their choice within a certain area. For example, we could watch a movie about a pop star such as Selena, and then students would be expected to choose another Hispanic group, whose music they liked, and make a presentation about them, including a history of the musician, samples of their music, details of awards won and a comparison with an American artist. It is important that students are able to recognize if information that they are given on the web is authentic, otherwise they will be presenting false information to their peers, and potentially outsiders as their presentations sometimes get posted onto the school website. I already review with my students a little how to get authentic information, but I know I need to do more. Looking through the common sense website I found many lesson plans which I could incorporate parts of into my teaching. For example choosing good key words when searching for authentic information. We would try some potential searches together and try and ascertain which websites looked legitimate and which didn’t. I normally tell my students that they should find other sources that back up information they find to make sure that it is accurate. Having attended an interesting conference at the weekend, I found out that the school district has access to search engines which help filter out websites which are not legitmate – this could be an invaluable resource for my students. It is really important to make issues personal to students, as they will be able to identify with them much more readily. Therefore I would ask students to give examples of when they had not taken the time to corroborate the information that they had found out that the information was not correct. How did that affect others? If they had shared that information/website with others, when it was incorrect, potentially what problems could that cause? It will be interesting to get their take on those issues. Copyright is also another area, where sometimes my students struggle, especially when trying to find their information on a legitimate website and accrediting it correctly using MLA format. The common sense website had some good lesson plans on this topic. Potentially as a class we could discuss why it is important to give credit to sources from a legal and ethical perspective. I would ask students how they felt when another plagiarized their work and get them to explain what happened and why it wasn’t ok. Going over the law and fair use policy is important so students can get an understanding of why they should accurately give credit to resources from legitimate websites. Looking through the curriculum on common sense website, I found that some of the lesson plans were in Spanish. These also provided worksheets for students in the Spanish language. It would be interesting to introduce some basic vocabulary surrounding the topic of digital citizenship and then get students to discuss some of the issues. There was a survey asking students several questions in the Spanish language about the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet with Spanish language statements to choose. It also talks about digital citizenship and digital media. I think it really helps internalize some of the issues when they are given the time to discuss them in depth with their peers and then have an in class discussion. I want students to speak in the foreign language as much as possible, so these Spanish lesson plans/survey could really enable my class to have lively discussions in the target language.
8 Comments
Caitlin Mitchell
2/11/2019 04:06:58 pm
Hi Tasha!
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2/11/2019 11:01:46 pm
Hi Caitlin - Thx for you comments. I know I don't focus enough on the copyright issues and really need to get students to pay more attention to this. I tend to get more wrapped up in the content rather than the finer points. I think we as the adults need to lead the way, in the hope that the younger generation will follow.
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Scott Marsden
2/11/2019 05:22:23 pm
Natasha,
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2/11/2019 10:58:56 pm
Thx for your comments Scott! The lesson I found had a short video and then invited students to talk about things personal to them. Students are asked if they have ever used pictures etc from websites and if they made any considerations about who took them, It asks students how they can be respectful of other's work and then turns things around asking how they would feel if someone used their work with/without asking their permission.
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Catalina Goldstein
2/11/2019 06:34:34 pm
Hey Tasha, how cool that Common Sense Media has lessons in Spanish. I think that would be a really cool challenge for your students. Too bad they don't offer one in French, yet. It's also a challenge to cite sources. It's a tough habit to form. I'm wondering if there's a good template for citation template to be used from Common Sense or the Stanford HEG.
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2/11/2019 11:21:34 pm
Yes - wouldn't that be awesome if they had the lessons in French! The only thing I've been doing consistently is telling my students to use Easybib to help them cite their sources, as all they have to do is type in the website and it will put it into MLA format for them.
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JP Castillo
2/11/2019 10:21:59 pm
I echo the sentiments about Copyright and Fair Use issues. One way we don't worry about it as much is we paid for a site that give us royalty free assets like music and images and backgrounds to use in our projects. I do agree that it definitely should be addressed so that our students can be more mindful as their online presence grows.
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2/11/2019 11:24:41 pm
Thx JP. Sometimes it's so hard to keep track of all of this stuff. You focus in your subject matter, but really when doing projects you do need to focus in more on the the ways that students should go about communicating with the outside world and giving credit where credit is due. Cheers.
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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
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