As you may know, I am the vice-principal of a Regina high school. I want to share two stories of technology and how it impacted my life this week. One story is unfortunate and the other is great - both were an eye-opener for the power of technology and how technology can be used and abused.
The unfortunate story - I receive a call from a concerned citizen in Saskatoon indicating that she has viewed a Facebook page that shows an incredibly ugly video. This Facebook page, she indicates, belongs to one of our students (which, indeed, it did). There is also a picture of a colleague who appears to be videoing/capturing something from her classroom window pointing outside. In the caption, the author states something to the effect that "my cool teacher is videoing two guys fighting" - followed by comments indicating what school and what subject the teacher taught. In this conversation with the citizen of Saskatoon, she questions the integrity of the school and integrity of the teacher. After all, if a teacher is videoing a fight, are they not part of the problem as well? So, my investigation starts. First off, I do find out who the Facebook page belongs to (albeit under a different name). Secondly, the awful video is not even a video from our school (although clearly, the author was there). Thirdly, after talking to the teacher (which is obviously a completely different situation), she indicates she saw a couple of guys horsing around, didn't know who they were, took a picture, went out to address the situation, and it turns out that the two boys are buddies and there was no animosity at all. This is why nothing was brought to our attention. Nevertheless, the caption above the picture is a false statement (or a partial truth at best). This gets me thinking about the negative implications technology can have. On a side note, this awful video was posted three hours prior to me viewing the page and there was already 185 likes and 154 comments. This video had gone viral(ish). When I spoke to my colleague the following day, he had received phone calls from the United States indicating this video was on Facebook. I guess another point of conversation had to be privacy settings of this user and why she allowed anyone to see her posts.
My second story of the week was more uplifting. I happened to be standing in front of my school this afternoon and looked back at my school. It is such an incredible building with so much history and tradition captured in its walls. Just the way the light was hitting it made for an incredible picture (although I might be a bit biased). So, I took a picture on my phone. Luckily, someone had showed me how to Tweet the picture right from my phone (I'm' still learning.....). By the time I made it back inside, I had already received an email indicating someone had retweeted my picture. Upon further investigation, there were two retweets almost immediately and these two people had a combined 424 followers who were seeing my picture. This got me thinking about the positive impacts that technology can have.
This leads me to my thought on digital citizenship. With such tremendous potential, we ought to be teaching our students about digital citizenship. The social media world can have such positive or negative impacts on so many people in such a short time, we must help our students realize the power they have at their finger tips. But with power comes responsibility. These kids have tremendous power but unfortunately, they have not been taught about their role in properly using this tool. I believe we must go down this path of helping students use this tool effectively or we may end up with a great deal more unfortunate stories. And not only do we need to teach students about properly producing digital media but we also must teach students to be good consumers of digital media as well. Not everything we see on the internet (teacher picture) must be taken as gospel. We must teach kids how to critically analyze what they see online and be able to formulate an accurate opinion based on what they have observed.
I agree with you regarding the power we have in this digital age. We need to teach the children the power and responsibility that comes with this. I teach kindergarten so this isn't a huge problem for me, but I often hear teachers in middle and high schools debating the use of technology (smart phones) in their classes. I really think that with more use in classrooms, it opens the air to talk about this power and responsibility that comes with it. We need to meet the kids where they are and help them become responsibile citizens, both in person and on-line.
ReplyDeleteHey, Blair. Great post! Stories are the best. It is interesting how social media affects your job as VP, and will more and more over time. Both teachers and administration are dealing with new issues around social media. I think you are definitely right about teaching students how to be a digital citizen. As far as I know it's not something specifically reflected in our curriculum (?), but you would think this is something that would soon be added..
ReplyDeleteBlair - thanks for sharing these stories. I am a firm believer of the necessity of teaching our students about digital citizenship. As they engage in more and more learning outside of the classroom walls (not just in the classroom), it becomes incredibly important to talk about critical reading in online spaces. In the United States, these kinds of skills are already finding their way into curriculum, and these American documents can provide some good guidelines for how we might think of approaching critical digital literacies in our classrooms. For instance, these are some general digital literacies - http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-s-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2 - but you can also find digital literacies addressed in different subject areas, such as these standards for English - http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentframework.
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