DIGITAL CITIZEN
Students recognise the rights, responsibilities
and opportunities of living, learning and working
in an interconnected digital world, and they act
and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
(ISTE, 2016)
and opportunities of living, learning and working
in an interconnected digital world, and they act
and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
(ISTE, 2016)
Coursework Artefact #1
When I enrolled in the MET program in September 2014, I also began a new job as the ICT Educational Specialist of the secondary section of an international school in Hong Kong. The main objectives of the position were to facilitate the integration of technology into multidisciplinary learning, offer professional development opportunities for teachers, and develop resources to assist teachers and students with the effective use of technology. Thus my first course ETEC 511: Foundations of Educational Technology was perfectly timed to enhance my understanding of my new educational technology position.
My primary role at my new job was to support teachers in achieving the 2014 ISTE Standards for Teachers. Standard four of this framework is to “Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility” by understanding local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behaviour in their professional practices (ISTE, 2014). This standard is directly related to ETEC 511’s Module 4: The Ethics & Jurisprudence of Educational Technology which explored the implications of freedom of expression and the legal issues of digital property.
One of the readings that resonated with me during this course was Kavita Philip’s article "What Is a Technological Author? The Pirate Function and Intellectual Property" (2005). Her writing explores Foucault’s definition of the author in the technological age, suggests the debate over the sharing of information is not unprecedented, and notes a distinction between “protecting genuine creativity (good) and defending simple piracy (bad)” work in the digital age (Philip, 2005, p. 210). Below is a visualisation of my key understandings from this article:
This article further prompted me to read Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture: How Big Media Uses and The Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity and various other articles on the topic. The final project for the course was a scholarly essay on a topic of my choice. Since I was so invested in the topic of copyright as it applied to my job, I was happy to compose an essay entitled Copyright Infringement: The War Against Piracy Is Stifling Culture and Creativity. Through my research for my scholarly essay, I was able to better understand the specifics about copyright laws and ethics in Hong Kong to design policies and resources to support teachers at my school.
Application to Practice
In January 2015, I ran an in-house teacher development workshop titled “21st Century Pirates: Intellectual Property Robbers” inspired by the readings in the ETEC 511 course and those I had reviewed in preparation for my scholarly essay. This workshop was created with the aim to share my knowledge of copyright and how it applies to teachers specifically working in international schools. It was an especially complex topic as the school at which I was employed was a for-profit company based in Hong Kong, running on a Canadian curriculum, and utilising resources from various countries.
Without the knowledge I had acquired in my MET course, I would not have been able to as effectively tackle such a multifaceted issue. I further developed lessons and student handouts throughout the school year to assist the staff with teaching students how to ethically and legally use information and content from the internet. After working with the teaching staff at my school for a full academic year, I shared my resources publicly on my education blog in a post titled Finding Free-to-Use Content for Multimedia Projects and presented a Speed Geeking session for other Hong Kong educators at the 8th Annual 21st Century Learning Conference.
Coursework Artefact #2
In May 2015, I continued my exploration of digital citizenship in my fourth MET course ETEC 531: Curriculum Issues in Cultural and Media Studies during a module about copyright and intellectual property rights. During this portion of the course, we explored issues surrounding the freedom of information for media specialists and students. Kavita Philip’s article "What Is a Technological Author? The Pirate Function and Intellectual Property" (2005) was again on the reading list and I was excited to have the opportunity to synthesis my learning from these two courses in my media production Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights.
For this final assignment, I chose to make a screencast video using only free-to-use images and music. This was an important aspect of the project as I feel it is important to model the message I was conveying to teachers and students. While the target audience for this video was meant to be other educators, I have used this project numerous times as an exemplar for my students when teaching them about how to find and cite digital content for their media projects.
Application to Practice
In September 2015, at the start of my second year as an ICT Educational Specialist, I developed a gamified approach to technology professional development for my school in which teachers could earn points for their department through the completion of activities or teaching practices (read more about this initiative in the Computational Thinker section). Points were categorised using the 2014 ISTE Standards for Teachers, which contains the standard “Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility” (ISTE, 2014). Thus, I curated practical and authentic ways for teachers to promote digital citizenship:
Find the full spreadsheet here.
Once teacher began integrating digital citizenship practices into their teaching to earn points, other teachers felt pressure to do the same in their classrooms. By the end of the academic year, a significant portion of the teachers on staff had become certified as a Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Educator by showing evidence of digital citizenship lessons in their teaching. In November 2015, I also ran a professional development session for teachers titled Finding Free-to-Use Content for Digital Projects which further explored practical classroom activities and resources to promote digital citizenship in students.
Once teacher began integrating digital citizenship practices into their teaching to earn points, other teachers felt pressure to do the same in their classrooms. By the end of the academic year, a significant portion of the teachers on staff had become certified as a Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Educator by showing evidence of digital citizenship lessons in their teaching. In November 2015, I also ran a professional development session for teachers titled Finding Free-to-Use Content for Digital Projects which further explored practical classroom activities and resources to promote digital citizenship in students.
Coursework Artefact #3
In May 2016, I began my eighth course in the MET program ETEC 540: Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. In addition to tracing the transition from orality to literacy through the lens of technological tools, during the final module of the course we also studied new media literacy. After completing a series of Rip.Mix.Feed culture activities, I constructed a multimedia project that extended my exploration of this topic. My screencast video Finding Free-to-Use Content for Multimedia Projects is a walkthrough of the theory of digital literacy and simple solutions to finding free-to-use content online.
Application to Practice
In September 2016, I moved out of technology coaching and back into the classroom to teach Grades 8-10 Language and Literature at an international school in Singapore. As an English teacher, I regularly infuse what I have learned about intellectual property into my literacy lessons in an effort to promote digital citizenship. With my Grade 8 students, we established our own media company to analyse, create and share media products in an ethical manner. One student even took on the role of our IP Lawyer to consult and teach us about the Creative Commons and ensure we were following the rules and regulations regarding copyright. My Grade 9 and 10 students regularly create presentations, posters and movies using only content that is labelled free-to-use. Various courses in the MET program provided me with the learning opportunities to become a digital citizen myself and share this information with my students as well as the greater education community.
References
Foucault, M. (1969). What is an author? Trans. Josué V. Harari. Societé Francais De Philosophie. Paris, France [Lecture].
ISTE (2014). ISTE Standards for Students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-S_PDF.pdf.
ISTE (2016, June). ISTE Standards for Students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016#startstandards.
Lerner, J. & Triole, J. (2005). The economics of technology sharing: Open source and beyond. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(2), 99-120.
Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
Liang, L., Mazmdar, A. & Suresh, M. (2005, February 1). Copyright/copyleft: Myths about copyright. Retrieved from https://www.countercurrents.org/hr-suresh010205.htm.
Philip, K. (2005). What is a technological author? The pirate function and intellectual property. Postcolonial Studies 8.2. p. 199-218.
Turple, C. (2014). Copyright infringement: The war against copyright is stifling culture and creativity. Unpublished paper. The University of British Columbia, Canada.
Turple, C. (2015). 21st Century Pirates: Intellectual Property Robbers [Google slides]. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1I3jiz62vZxgIh8unvvekNc3iIvy5-D06Lcy0MLVvRqU/edit?usp=sharing.
Turple, C. [Cris Turple]. (2015, August 15). Copyright and intellectual property rights [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmkcUZQTAms.
Turple, C. [Cris Turple]. (2016, August 27). Finding free-to-use content for digital projects [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qaOk-yL4eo&t=279s.
Turple, C. [CrisTurple]. (2016, February 19). SpeedGeeking: Finding free-to-use content for multimedia projects [Twitter moment]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/CrisTurple/status/700917935418703873.
Turple, C. (2014). Visualisation of ‘What is a technological author?’ [diagram].
Walter, J. [JWalterEDU]. (2015, November 11). Today’s students are part of the remix culture [Twitter moment]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JWalterEDU/status/664686813827612672.