EdTech Loop Episode 105: #DigCitCommit

The EdTech Loop Podcast revisits it's favorite subject: Digital Citizenship! We discuss the latest METS Group Virtual Rally, changes and improvements to digcitcommit.org and the five #digcit ISTE competencies and so much more in this jam packed episode.

“I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives?” - Barak Obama

Useful Links:
Lauren Villaluz @senoraluz - Dig Cit Commit: Reflecting On Our Practice as Coaches & Leaders
Standards - DigCit found in Coaches, Education Leaders, Educators (citizen strand)
AI and Humanity Study Group
https://learn.kqed.org/discussions
Podcast - Note to Self - How to Create Good Digital Citizens
Nancy Watson - @nancywtech - infographic and app (https://digcit.glideapp.io/) - question starters for kids
Follow @digcitcommit on Twitter - also #digcitcommit - Poster

Show Transcript

Larry Burden 0:05
Look at this neat stuff you can do with technology, it's great.

Yeah, I host a Tech podcast. I like GIFs.

It's Episode 105 of the EdTech Loop podcast, my name is Larry Burden and she's just got back from Iowa after developing a voting app that probably shouldn't have made it past beta, it's Danelle Brostrom. Too soon?

Danelle Brostrom 0:34
No, I like it. I love it.

Larry Burden 0:36
I may have rushed the intro, but meditated thoughtfully while considering this week's moment of Zen.

Moment of Zen 0:42
Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.

Larry Burden 0:49
The delegate from Sabin has chosen not to abstain from voting for this week's meat of the show, Dive into DigCit. So, I think earlier this year we were going through our, the different topics that we're going to cover, and we're discussing digital, digital citizenship which we are want to do, and I think at some point in time we were like, you know what, we've probably done too much. We've probably done too much digit digital citizenship. And I would say, I disagree strongly with the delegate from Sabin. I think this is probably the most important topic we ever cover on the podcast for a number of reasons, and by the amount of notes, that you have I'm pretty confident that, that's an accurate take. So, go ahead. I've got some thoughts but you had, it was like stream of consciousness, Google Doc-ing. It was amazing. I'm like, Wow!

Danelle Brostrom 1:49
It really was stream of consciousness Please don't copy and paste that into the show.

Larry Burden 1:52
It's going, For sure.

Danelle Brostrom 1:53
Um, okay so let me kind of frame today's discussion, huge, huge shout out to the METS Group, The Michigan Educational Technology Specialists. On Friday, January 31st, they held their 2020 Virtual Rally, and it's a half day, it's all online, it's different sessions. They had sessions on accessibility, Copyright, PBL, giving quality feedback. The quality of these sessions are just top notch. They're phenomenal. And I love that they're all recorded and online, so those of us who may have missed a session because of a meeting, or had to teach in the morning, or whatever, they're all there and you can watch the sessions, right now. So I do want you to include that link in the show notes because I think that is really important that does frame our discussion today. My favorite session was by a Tech Integrationist from downstate Lauren Villaluz. You can find her on Twitter, she's @senoraluz. She did a session called DigCitCommit, reflecting on our practice as coaches and leaders. And honestly Larry I went into the session like, oh I know a lot about digital citizenship, let's, let's see what she's got to talk about, has to share. And wow, I feel like I knew nothing, because it was all brand new and I want to be honest I'm, I'm nervous that I'm not gonna give this topic what, what I could. There's, there's just so much here. So, ISTE recently released five competencies for digital citizenship. So instead of having this conversation be one of fear and negativity and this list of don'ts. They're really shifting it to this list of do's. They're shifting the conversation to one of inclusivity, and empathy, and action. And it all started out with these five competencies, and I guess it was like, ISTE put out this call to action and 2018 that asked educators to do one thing, one small thing to advance, advance digital citizenship in the world, and then they were going to kind of look at the impact of all those small things combined. And now it's grown into this DigCitCommit movement, which I want to talk about today. And it just continues to grow. Like, these competencies are amazing. So I do want to go through them.

Larry Burden 4:13
Before you do because I, when I was going through this in my negligible research, it struck me that, as we've been covering digital citizenship and as you said, it's been kind of the don't do's, as opposed to the do's, and I think it was because we were trying to fit what our concept of, an old concept of citizenship was in a new model, or a new environment. It's taking a new definition of citizenship to fit with the new environment. What we were doing before was not working.

Danelle Brostrom 4:48
Right.

Larry Burden 4:49
It probably shouldn't have because this was a developing concept. I think the fruit is ripened, and you could tell by the, by what your research had come up with, and how surprised you were with what was there when you started diving in. I'm really excited about this because this is, this is the I think the start of that redefinition of what citizenship is. And as we've, as I've stated before, and as we've talked about before. The kids are ahead of this, are way, way ahead of what the new environment, what citizenship in the new environment is. I think it's going to be a lot harder for the teachers, and a lot harder for other adults, because we are stuck in an old model.

Danelle Brostrom 5:32
Totally. There is a really great podcast I want to plug to, "Note to Self," did a podcast called, "How to Create Good Digital Citizens," and um, Manoush Zomorodi she's the host of that one, she talked to Richard Colada, who's the CEO of ISTE. And I love how they set it up. They talk about these five competencies, but they set it up like, so we live in a society, and to be a citizen of this society you have to follow certain rules. And, you know, you stop at stoplights, and you pay your taxes, and they're their rules that you follow. And then they're also those unwritten rules like: you're sitting next to someone at a cafe, you don't reach over and steal their fries or take a slurp of their coffee because it looks good. There are just things that you don't do, but then what would it be like if we had this world that didn't.

Larry Burden 5:59
You haven't seen me in a coffee shop. Sampling as I go.

Danelle Brostrom 6:25
You didn't ruin my train of thought at all Larry, I'm gonna keep going.

Larry Burden 6:29
Cafe' Au Let, Ooh yummy.

Danelle Brostrom 6:30
But what do you do in this world, it, when, when there aren't rules and what would that be like, and well that's kind of what we've got going on online right now, and that our kids are poised to be this much more civilized digital universe, but only if we'd start teaching them now. Otherwise, nothing's going to happen. So they really go through the five competencies one by one and talk about them. I think it's really worth a good listen. But, um so those five competencies: the first one is inclusive. I'm open to hearing and respectfully recognizing multiple viewpoints, and I engage with others online with respect, and empathy. What a beautiful world. Right?

Larry Burden 7:12
Yes. Yes. I'm let you go through them.

Danelle Brostrom 7:16
Number two: informed, I evaluate the accuracy, perspective and validity of digital media and social posts. Number three: engaged, I use technology and digital channels for civic engagement to solve problems and be a force for good in both physical and virtual communities. I love that, force for good.

Larry Burden 7:36
I want to stop here, if I could, because that one struck me in a negative way. Because, observing what goes on online, especially in social formats, I tend to disengage, because it's very difficult to engage constructively, because that's really not the way citizenship works online currently. But I like the concept behind what that said. I just didn't know how plausible it was, or what actions would have to happen to make, make it plausible. And what I came up with, it, just you know after a few seconds was, all we really need to do when looking at all these, and we'll continue with the other, the other two. Two? Is put them all under one umbrella and just say slow down. Because you're not going to be able to focus on any of these without slowing down. And that in the environment, the digital environment is Go, Go, Go, fast, fast, fast, whether it's on purpose, whether it's the thought or the mindset that we're bringing into it, or a model that is trying to drive attention needs you to not recognize and think thoughtfully about what you're doing you're mindful about what you're doing. Going into any of these, we need to slow down, and that and be mindful and recognize where we're at so then we can actually make these standards actionable.

Danelle Brostrom 9:17
Yeah, that's true.

Number four: balanced, I make informed decisions about how to prioritize my time and activities online and off. And then number five: alert, I am aware of my online actions, and I know how to be safe and create safe spaces for others, online. So what's pretty cool is that ISTE has taken those five competencies and they are working with Common Sense Media and a lot of other awesome organizations.

Larry Burden 9:44
All the, all the organizations.

Danelle Brostrom 9:46
All the organizations who are already working in that digital citizenship realm. They kind of came together to commit to bringing high quality resources in one location. So, I mean there's resources everywhere and this is a collective effort to bring it all together and found that digcitcommit.org. Wow, what is on here is incredible. Like I said, Common Sense Media, Brainpop, DigCit Institute. There's some new resources that I hadn't heard of. There's some resources specifically on the intersection of AI and humanity, which I'm totally interested in. I just joined the AI and humanity study group from the Digital Citizenship Institute. Larry, they are going to talk about Black Mirror episodes! What! I'm trying to talk to people in my life about it and they're not interested, so I need, these are my people. I'm totally hooked on these discussion topics from KQED.org. They're under the, "Learn," section and there are topics that you can give to, they say Middle and High School, I think it could even do some of these with upper El. And just things like: should the US have universal healthcare, should be raise the federal minimum wage, can we trust social media influencers, should we get rid of the Electoral College, should zoos exist, should school start later? And they have these little videos that are backed by research. And then on this site kids are actually sharing their responses, and I think you could do some awesome things in the classroom with these real, authentic issues. There's just so much here. It's brilliant to put it all in one place, this DigCitCommit.org.

Larry Burden 11:24
Without being negative, it almost, it almost was overwhelming, but the fact that it was all, all there, and all the disparate groups, like all of them, were represented, tells me that things are starting to coalesce into a more cohesive message which is so necessary. Because it is. We go to ISTE, we go to digitcommit, we go to Google, we go to Common Sense Media. All these different places were kind of all saying similar things and we were touching on all of them. Guess where they're all at now. They're all, they're all in one one spot and I named, some of them.

Danelle Brostrom 12:04
Yeah,

Larry Burden 12:05
But they're all there. So, all the people, and that's the wonderful thing, or one of the really hopeful things about the digital culture is the fact that all these people could actually go, Oh, we're all part of the same community. Let's get together and really leverage our voice.

Danelle Brostrom 12:26
It, it is building a culture. It's not doing one lesson in February, or one lesson when you talk about this specific unit, it really is building a culture where you're talking about real issues with kids that, that they're struggling with. And, and digital citizenship is in the Educator Standards from ISTE, and it's in those Ed Tech Coach Standards, but it's also in those Educational Leaders Standards. So as an administrator, one of the ISTE Standards is: Equity and Citizenship Advocate. So how are you not only telling the teachers to do digital citizenship, but how are you modeling that in your own life, and I think that's important too. I mean, as an educator, there are kind of different levels to this. You know, are you, are you just grabbing images from Google and creating your stuff? Or are you, you know, going through and citing where you got those images from, and talking to your kids about citations, and why you chose this image over this one, and how to find appropriate images. All that kind of stuff that just happens organically as you're teaching, that's that's how this should be. It should be a part of, a part of culture, and I think these five competencies are going to help get there, and man, this DigCitCommit, there's a lot there. But I think the important thing is, is that at least it's all in one place now and these groups are kind of working together. I think what all of us should do is we should commit to do it like, like what the CEO of ISTE said at, in 2018 commit to doing one thing, pick one thing you're going to try. Nancy Watson, she's @nancywtech on Twitter. She created this cool app using "Glide." We talked a little bit about "Glide," before, it's "Glide," app and you can create, you put things into a spreadsheet and then it bumps this really cool app. Yeah, yeah David was really excited about it. But if you go to digcit.glideapp.io. It's this app that she created, and you can click on, "Primary," you can click on, "High School," and it gives you these easy questions starters within those five competencies. So, I love that there are people out there that are trying to create and make this usable. I think we commit to doing one thing and I really think we just, we...this is the start. It's all here, and then I think the next step is going to be to try to curate it, and what's good for you and what's good for other people, and just try to organize it all. It's just amazing. Anyway, think about that Barack Obama quote: I want us to ask ourselves every day how are we using technology to make a real difference in people's lives." And I think that this stuff is going to make a real difference if we help it grow.

Larry Burden 15:00
You know, you're, you're, you're talking about the conversations that can be had. The important conversations that can be had, online. I think one of the things that we've struggled with is how, what is the appropriate way to have those conversations. We're now setting some societal rules, or considering setting some societal rules on how to have that discourse online, and we're starting to come to a consensus around what being a good digital citizen is.

Danelle Brostrom 15:33
For sure, and I don't think you can say anymore, I don't teach tech, I don't have time for that. This is so essential to society.

Larry Burden 15:43
There are so many resources on this site for ways to incorporate. Some of them aren't going to work for you. Just do one, give it a shot. If that doesn't work, there's another, don't worry about it.

Danelle Brostrom 15:56
And there are resources on there for families as well. I know that they linked up Google's, "Be Internet Awesome," created some family resources, and those were on that site as well. I was looking at those discussions. Those are discussions I can have with my family, and with my own children at home. So there are things that I can do as a parent, and there are things, I mean, we all know adults should be looking at these competencies to and try to clean up our digital footprint. Right? Fair enough?

Larry Burden 16:24
I'm speechless really.

Danelle Brostrom 16:26
But I just, I think that this stuff is good for everyone.

Larry Burden 16:30
When you're having these conversations with your child. Allow the time to have the conversation. Give them the time to consider. Because some of the conversations, some of these thoughts aren't necessarily going to be things that they're going to want, A: want to have conversations around, and B: have thoughts ready. They're going to need some time to kind of consider. And if we're rushing, there you're going to feel rushed and frustrated and then that conversation is not going to take place. So if you are having that conversation, make sure that you're giving the time for the conversation to really unfold because these are not yes or no answers. These are conversations to be had, and probably some tough ones, because more than likely, as adults, we're not modeling the greatest behavior here.

Danelle Brostrom 17:22
And now Larry you have older kids so maybe, I mean tell me if I'm totally off base on this one but, I think it needs to be a conversation to, it doesn't need to be you know preachy because I think that it's valuable, their opinion with technology. And you know, that they see it as an extension. And there was an article, I just shared it on Twitter, and it was from a 17 year old who quit social media, and his point that everyone else is on social media and kids think I'm weird because I'm not. Like, that's a perspective that we might not have considered. So to recognize that perspective, and have a conversation about that perspective, instead of coming in preachy as an adult, I think that's important.

Larry Burden 18:03
I think in many ways, their relationship with their digital lives is much more mature than adults are. And when I say mature, it's not that they're more mature than adults, but their digital lives have matured as far as their understanding of a digital life, has maturity because they've been on it more. The person that they're bringing isn't as mature, necessarily, but how they're interacting oftentimes is. And I think we need to when we're having those conversations, respect the fact that the information that they're giving us is probably going to have more depth and breadth than we're giving it. And we could probably learn a lot from, how they're interacting with it. Because really our depth of knowledge in the digital environment is going to be, most likely, less than theirs.

Danelle Brostrom 18:53
I think the more you can have it be a conversation rather than a preaching, the farther you're gonna get. But adults need to learn these competencies too. I just wanna say that.

Larry Burden 19:02
And to be honest, I mean that's really what our, what our what this podcast audience is, is adults,

Danelle Brostrom 19:06
For sure, we all need to look.

Larry Burden 19:08
We have to recognize, and I think any adult that's listening to this, is listening to it because they're thoughtful about this topic. So, when we, when we're reticent about bringing it up as adults, it's very clear why, that there's work to be done.

Danelle Brostrom 19:25
There is. So check out DigCitCommit. You can follow them on Twitter. There's also a DigCitCommit hashtag, and then DigCitCommit.org. And again, huge shout-out to the METS Group and Lauren Villaluz for bringing this to that virtual rally, yeah.

Larry Burden 19:42
Awesome. Tech Tool of the Week?

Techtool of the Week 19:43
Tech Tool of the Week. There is an event coming up. This DigCitCommit group was putting together a DigCitCommit Virtual Congress. They're doing it February, 11th and 12th. Informative inspirational, virtual event, and they've got students speakers, they've got teachers, keynotes, youth leaders, lightning rounds, spotlights of successful digital initiatives. It's super, super cool and there's stuff going on for two days straight. So I would, I already signed up to attend and I'm just gonna check on the ones that fit with my schedule. But I think this is so cool, and you can use a lot of these with, with students, check that out. I'm DigCitCommit.org and it's found under the events section.

Larry Burden 20:30
Awesome. Tutorials and Updates, just want to let you know there's gonna be more posts coming soon. I have to get a TechNollerGist podcast out here relatively soon. But on my end, there's a lot of, I was backed up with a lot of editing. So there's a lot of stuff that is going to be happening hopefully soon on the EdTech Loop podcast so stay tuned. For instance prepare for the return of transcripts. I'm like six episodes behind on transcripts so those will be coming up because we do actually respect some of those ADA requirements and, I really want to make sure that our podcast is available for everybody.

Danelle Brostrom 21:05
Very inclusive of you Larry,

Larry Burden 21:06
Yes we're, we're trying, we are definitely trying. This is something new that I'm going to bring up, and I just came up with it so.

Danelle Brostrom 21:12
Is that why you didn't prep me ahead of time?

Larry Burden 21:12
Absolutely. This is not really a segment. This is just I want to end, I want to before we go into the closing, I want to put this in there. And we need to title because my title is, "I Demand Answers," but that seems a little forceful. But I want to have a question at the end of every pod, every pod to spark that discussion. And this one's really simple. How do you included DigCit in your, in your curriculum? We know what needs to be included. There's not necessarily any spot specifically for it. So I'm really curious on how educators are attempting to incorporate digital citizenship and those lessons into their, into their curriculum, how do you make it work?

Danelle Brostrom 21:32
And how you make it work after listening to this podcast today?

Larry Burden 21:53
Bingo, Bingo. So, in closing, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @tcapsloop,

Danelle Brostrom 21:58
@brostromda,

Larry Burden 21:59
bringing my A game, subscribe to the podcast on Podbean, iTunes, Stitcher, Tune-in Downcast, Overcast, Google Play Store, Spotify or wherever else you get your ear candy. Leave review, we love the feedback. And again, answer that question, just #edtechloop on Twitter. With that answer, and thank you for listening and inspiring.

Danelle Brostrom 22:22
There's a group that's going to talk about Black Mirror, What!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

 

Tech Tool of the Week:

DigCitCommit Virtual Congress

 

I Demand Answers!

How are you including #digcit in your classroom? (respond using #edtechloop)