Digital Citizenship is not a choice anymore. We cannot deny the world around us and have the responsibility of teaching this mindset to our students, starting from preschool!
Context of my school
I work in an “International Baccalaureate” school. In the elementary section, we moved from an ICT teacher (with ICT stand-alone classes) to a mix of coaching and ICT class and now moving to 100% coaching because teachers take ownership of the “tech” skills of the kids and we support in making this happen. This is the draft of our “scope and sequence” for Preschool and primary years”.
In Secondary (grade 6-12), we have moved from a “digital design” focused curriculum where “programs and tools” were taught to a concept-based “Design” curriculum where kids work on product and/or digital design (therefore integrating the STEAM/Makerspace/Tinkering mindset) and here is our revamped and almost finalized scope and sequence so we take a stand in teaching technology as part of design but we do coach and mentor teachers too.
The integration of Digital Citizenship in the curriculum
Our Tech Vision encompasses the necessity to become digital citizens. At MBIS, all community members should be aware of the various aspects of digital citizenship including academic honesty, online behavior, online privacy and safety, communication, digital footprint and identity/self-image.
First of all, we start each Academic Year with Students Booth Camps. The purpose of Digital Booth Camps is for the Tech Integrators to interact with students directly, set the expectations about the use of technology at MBIS and observe the level of digital citizenship in each class to better differentiate and continue raising awareness, promoting better understanding of digital citizenship aspects as well as recognize best actions in this area.
Here you can find our (context-specific) essential agreements for the year 2016-17.
In terms of curriculum integration, we follow the K-12 Digital Citizenship Scope and Sequence by Common Sense Education. We have over 30 teachers involved in teaching those skills to students from preschool to grade 12.
Here is our school Digital Citizenship scope and sequence (integrated in our curriculum).
In addition, we use Seesaw for School in preschool and elementary school for their learning journal and e-portfolio and Google Classroom in Elementary and Secondary School.
In Middle School, we just started to introduce GoEnnounce (a sort of a LinkedIn page) as a pilot project and we love it! We would like to keep this tool until students apply for college in Grade 12 as this ready support their applications.
Finally, in High School, we let students create their own Blog for the “Creativity, Service and Activity”. They use blogger, weebly or wordpress.
This is our Digital Citizenship Ecosystem:
and these are the edtech tools that helps us achieve our vision:
We have Weekly Tech Tips for parents and online and on campus sessions to connect with families. We also organize events such as: the Hour of Code, The Digital Citizenship Week and the Maker Saturday to get various stakeholders engaged, in particular parents.