Moving Forward with #DigCit

Realizing more and more that students live daily online, there is definite need for clearly stated digital citizenship instruction. South Hills High School is no different, but Relying on informal instruction throughout the course of a month just isn't enough to bring these important concepts home for them. Common Sense Education's lessons research based and engaging for all students to help make digital citizenship a focus throughout the year. Becoming a Common Sense Certified School is a great program to solidify our commitment as educators to teaching students to be caring, mindful, responsible digital citizens who keep themselves and their information safe online."

My job as a 1:1 Integration Specialists is not only to distribute and maintain laptops for students in all of our High Schools in Fort Worth ISD, but my passion lies around cultivating a digital culture shift that emphasizes putting the focus on meeting the students where they are. In the beginning the push back for digital integration was fierce, but once I was able to break the through the malarkey and get to the real reason for the opposition, I came to realize that fear was at the forefront. Teachers and Administrators alike opposed students using technology because of the negativity they see in the headlines, but also due to their lack of understanding of how to use technology effectively on their own personal levels. With that being said, Digital Citizenship became a priority. Not to teach all the “don’t” and “dangers” of technology, but how, if used with a cognizant mindset, technology is essential to building your brand. The question became, “What Is Your Brand?” Thus our theme for this year.

Basically, what I’ve done is taken the wonderful work that Common Sense Media has put together and tailored it to meet South Hills where they were. We used the Digital Bytes series for High School students, broke it down into 3 components in our LMS:

1. The Problem (Our Hook)

2. The Impact (Our Discussion piece)

3. The Call To Action (Our Media Product opportunity)

Each month, I set up a new topic based on the options within Digital Bytes and after breaking it down, I push it to all the students. I let the teachers know that these lessons are student driven and they do not need to necessarily teach the lessons, but I highly encourage them to be involved in the process. They (teachers) are given PDF versions of the lesson to go over on their own to prepare. During the month, students are allowed to complete the lessons at their own pace. “The problem” presents a video to hook them into the topic. There are questions to respond to after viewing the video which leads into the discussion aspect. Students are given 2 scenarios with video and questions, they can choose to do either one or both, but are highly encouraged to actively participate in the discussion piece. We don’t want them to just make a comment and leave, but come back and respond to what others are saying as well. The churn was slow at first but picked up mid-year. Lastly, there is an option to demonstrate your understanding of the topic by completing a “Call to Action” media project which once again comes from the original Digital Bytes series.

I incentivize each topic. For example, our very first lesson dealt with Online Haters and Trolls, which I titled Canceling Out the Noise. So, I gave away a pair of Beats by Dre Noise Cancelation Wireless headphone (You see what I did there). To be eligible to receive the prize, you had to submit a Call To Action project. Then students voted on the winner. The first time we did this we had 220 submissions, which to me was pretty awesome!

To supplement all of that, my Student Innovation Leadership Committee (SILC) conducts bi-weekly Google Hangouts on Air with the last show of the month being dedicated to the current Digital Citizenship topic. This was our way of culminating the discussion by allowing the students to create an online panel type environment to voice their thoughts about the subject. This was powerful because it expanded the audience for our students. They begin to think deeper about the impact of the decisions made about their personal use of technology.

From all of that, South Hills was able to become A Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Certified School; the first in Fort Worth ISD. We plan to have a banner hanging ceremony in October to kick off our promotion campaign for our Community Social Media night to be held tentatively on October 20. We are considering changing the date in concert with the National Digital Citizenship Week, but are simply waiting to confirm the official dates. The evening is meant to build on our certification as it holds us responsible to teach others of the usefulness of Social Media. The plan is to bring in the parents of not only the high school students, but involve all the feeder schools within our pyramid structure and our Ed Tech zones in order to teach them how to effectively use tools like Twitter and Snapchat. We want to bring in Marketing Experts to teach local businesses how to effectively market their products using Social Media. Along with partnering with our parents in keeping our kids safe online. SILC will drive this event, because we want to make sure some student ownership comes out of all of this.

So, that’s a little bit about what we are doing with Digital Citizenship at the moment. Once again, the premise is not to concentrate solely on the negative, but highlight the self-branding capabilities that technology has to offer. We can't keep our students from using the technology, so why not meet them where they are and teach them to use their tech savviness for the greater good.

I am in the process of revamping the 1:1 website for South Hills, but you can still see some of the information at http://1to1southhills.org