On the Cool Cat Teacher Blog - by Vicki A. Davis, she has been working on a "digiteen" project with students and educators. She has started a wikispace and been adding to it throughout the year (beginning at April of this year). There are videos, statistics, etc. on everything from digital citizenship to internet safety to teaching strategies. It is very informative and has some really great resources. I was impressed how she has included students in this process - which I believe makes it more valid and current.
The beginning of the wikispace starts out by her saying that this wikispace is:
"A web page for a digital citizenship group project between Qatar Academy, Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia USA and Vienna International School in Vienna, Austria."
WOW! What a novel idea! Global collaboration! How exciting!!! This is not innovative - despite what you may think - but it IS something that needs to be explored more often. Lots of work? yes. possibly less if you give your students more creative control. but yes. work. (Vicki was great enough to comment - check it out! ! She says it really was not that much work; "The students wrote the wiki themselves -- not the teachers! They did it all! They came up with the action projects to teach the other students. As for it being a lot of work, it really wasn't at all. We started off watching the PBS series "Growing up online" and then moved into this.")
What a build up, huh? I hope that you all take a chance to check this out and really look at the items on the navigation bar on the side - see what other people are doing, and maybe come up with some ideas to help you teach your students internet safety - hopefully in a more exciting way than barking at them at the front of the room!
Check it out:
http://digiteen.wikispaces.com/
If you want more information on what Vicki Davis' thoughts are - and more specific information on this project, check out her blog:
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2008/05/digiteen-teaching-digital-citizenship.html
PS - Thank you Vicki Davis for leaving your comments/thoughts! I really appreciate your touch on this post - I just read your blog and was "wowed" - I had to tell everyone as soon as I could! And thank you for fixing my much needed corrections on the timeline and who is really doing all that work! Thanks again! :-)
This project has actually only run since April. The students wrote the wiki themselves -- not the teachers! They did it all!
ReplyDeleteThey came up with the action projects to teach the other students. As for it being a lot of work, it really wasn't at all. We started off watching the PBS series "Growing up online" and then moved into this.
It is a great project, I hope that more people will do it.
Wow! Thanks for amending the post and for linking to me. Something many beginning bloggers forget is to link to those they are discussing -- but as you can see, most "real" bloggers follow the "backlinks" and comment wherever the conversation goes. (At least the "unselfish" ones do.)
ReplyDeleteThank you again and I hope we'll see some other schools tackle this important topic!