Digital Readiness Reflection
At the end of my first quarter in the Values Ethics and Foundations in Digital Education (EDTC 6101) I’ve gained insight into what it means to be a digital citizen. Mike Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Education describes norms of responsible behavior with regard to technology use.
Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Education:
With Ribble’s nine elements as well as my own interests and insights gained from the EDTC 6101 course I developed 10 questions that I used to interview an administrator of a school district. For this assignment I kept the district and interviewee confidential.
Interview Questions:
- What visions or goals does your district have for technology development? Are any based of the ISTE standards?
- What obstacles have you faced in working towards these goals?
- What is our district view on digital citizenship?
- What are we doing well and what do we need to improve on as a district, specifically around digital citizenship?
- What ways have you taught digital citizenship to teachers and students?
- Is there a continuum or k-12 alignment on how to teach digital citizenship? What is it’s status and current value?
- How do you feel students view technology in our district?
- How do you feel teachers view technology in our district?
- How do parents view technology in our district?
- How do you measure technologies impact on learning?
After the interview I had time to reflect on the interview. Listed, are interesting insights that came up for me:
- This year the district has created initiatives for the technology department that align with the district’s instructional strategic plan.
- The created initiatives were not created from the ISTE standards but the district connects them with the standards when giving professional development.
- There is an “assumption” by the public that the district has a strong implementation of technology.
- The district is building a foundation to create equitable access to technology and help teachers understand how to use the technology in their classes to enhance learning.
- Digital Citizenship hasn’t been a high priority of the district office this year; it has been left to individual schools. However, the district see’s it as a priority and is hoping next year to address digital citizenship and create a scope and sequence for k-12.
Overall, when thinking about how to present my findings and insights back to the presenter I wanted to focus on all the good that the district was doing. My experience working in schools has taught me that there is always more that can be done; it’s easy to see what is lacking rather than what’s in place. I felt that the district’s technology department has done a good job assessing their current realities and setting specific goals that align with the districts instructional strategic plan. I focused on their methods of developing these goals and plan’s and presented my understanding of them in a Powtoon video.
