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Adventures in Teaching

Reflections, thoughts and ramblings of a South Australian Secondary English/Humanties Teacher and Teacher Librarian, currently studying a Graduate Certificate in International Baccalaureate Education at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

ETL523 - Module 5

24/4/2020

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Currently, there are no job descriptions including the terms "digital learning" or "leadership for digital citizenship" or any form of that wording. Making a DLE part of the job description would make it clear that monitoring or being heavily involved within the DLE is a part of the job and not have any confusion. Making it clear that they would be looking at the DLE from a social, cultural and global perspective would also make the desires of the site clear. My personal DLE is generally made up of databases that I have accessed as well as the use of OneNote for recording of notes or documents. Within my employment we use Google Docs and the Google Classroom for recording of material and saving of documents.

The frustrations of going digital include having used new mechanisms and programs that we are unfamiliar with. It can also be a struggle with having to keep the content continually updated and easily accessible for students. You also have teachers who are set in their ways of teaching and moving online is struggle because it goes against what they have always done. Leadership need to support the teachers in the transition to online learning. My wish list for improving a DLE includes having an ease of access of work from a personal computer as well as an ease of having discussion boards. Responsible learning is being able to take charge of your learning and being able to keep up with what is required and not leaving it to the last minute. It also encompasses being able and willing to ask for help when you need it.

It is important as many of the today's students have devices and spend much of their time online. However, we need to ensure that we are teaching them how to be safe online and how to keep themselves safe from predators. A digital citizenship program can ensure that all students have accessed the same thing, as not all teachers embed digital citizenship into the curriculum. Some teachers see this as being a useless point of the curriculum as some teachers thing that our students are experts in their fields.

There are internet and Chromebook policies that are updated regularly as well as a Learning from Home guide, that was created this year. The senior leadership team is responsible for the updating of the policies. I can understand both sides of the 'devices at staff meetings' debate and I am personally for that everyone should make the choice themselves. Some staff members cannot write clearly (dyslexia, dysgraphia etc) and therefore, computers are the way they can take notes and transcribe what is occurring. Some staff prefer handwritten notes as they take in the content easier.

There are some norms and that is that people stick with what they know. People see no harm with what they were doing and continue as they have been, regardless of whether they know better or not. Adults don't tend to know when to stop with social media; they tend to see it as a 'norm' to get into arguments online or Twitter feuds - in many cases adults are worse than children.

If comfortable, I would share some of the pitfalls that we have encountered in social media as it shows that it can happen to anyone and it doesn't discriminate against people. I would also highlight the content of documents such as community standards for different sites as this can highlight some facts that they may not know or be willing to acknowledge. Handling these topics with care is important as it means that we are acknowledging their different experiences and histories.
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ETL523 - Module 4

4/4/2020

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The digital environment is a global place - you can connect with anyone from all over the world. We need to foster a global perspective, otherwise we are being blind to what is occurring globally; regardless of the sphere it is in. When developing a professional personal brand, we need to keep in mind that the data online is not 100% safe. There are reports of social media accounts being hacked and held hostage or posting content that goes against our personal beliefs. We need to ensure that we have protected our integrity online to the best of our ability. We need to be able to display the same level of professionalism (if not higher) that we are expecting from our students. Our students are still developing their competence in this area and as a site, I am unsure as to what we are doing exactly (I do not have a home group nor do I work with the year levels as a whole.); however, I am hoping to instil some of these concepts in my Year 8 English class. I personally dislike small talk, I prefer to get to the point - teachers are busy enough that scenarios that involve small talk, in my personal opinion as a waste of time. Also, as a TRT (and Early Career Teacher to boot), I find that some long-term teachers use this as an opportunity to brag about what they have done rather than trying to pass on valuable information that could help the new teacher.

I personally dislike using social media as part of a DLE. I like to keep my social media separate from my work and therefore reduce stress etc. I do however, follow some teaching pages on Facebook in order to keep up to date and learn from them but I very rarely interact on a deep level as it is a stress trigger for me.

Using technology for collaboration and communication can be a challenge. Sarcasm, for example, cannot be easily expressed through the written word. It is more easily detectable through tone and inflection; and while the use of video calling can help ease this, connection delays and less than great internet connection can make it a fairly large barrier. At a basic level, time zones can be a challenge for online collaboration. Where one may be awake, another may be sleeping and vice versa. Even within Australia, time zones can be rough to try and arrange collaboration.

21st century digital learners need to understand that what they put online, stays online, regardless of whether people try and bring it down. Even as technology gets more sophisticated, those that wish to exploit it are becoming more and more savvy. It is easy these days, for fake accounts to be created and even if the person is on a legitimate site, they can be swayed by hackers or those of ill-repute.
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    Note:

    The posts dated from 2019-2020 are direct from my Charles Sturt University blog; hosted on their servers. For my own record, I have chosen to re-post them here. Due to this, there may be some formatting problems and for that I apologise.

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  • Home
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  • Proficient to Highly Accomplished
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