Educational Technologies Blog

Throughout these last eight weeks of this course my colleagues have share some very insightful and informative technologies. However, during our quest to find technologies related to digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette last week three technologies were shared by my colleagues Donna Dingle and Alicia Hall, which peaked my interest and I thought that they would be effective tools for my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners to learn digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette.

The first site that sparked my interest was the Free Technology for Teachers www.freetech4teachers.com (Donna Dingle). This site is excellent for free resources to teach digital citizenship. For example, the site provides Google Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculums and there are enough lesson plans for three individual classes. These curriculums are great for my ABE and ESL adult learners and can be implemented through pre-assessment quizzes, videos, vocabulary builders and interactive group activities.  For instance, the first class curriculum is about creating online sleuths. Some of the learners’ goals are to learn the difference between true and false information and evaluate and compare online information for accuracy, relevance, and bias. The lesson plans are extremely detailed and easily implemented.

Additionally, the Carnegie Cyber Academy www.carnegiecyberacademy.com/funstuff (Donna Dingle) is another free site with more animated interactive online games and quizzes that teach digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette. This site is an excellent tool for my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners because it requires them to interact with the games and quizzes online and it provides instant feedback. Therefore, this website could be used incrementally throughout the semester to reinforce digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette throughout the semester. For example, the games and quizzes would be good warm-up exercises for all the classes.

Last but not least, the Digital Citizenship Starter Kit www.commonsensemedia.org/educators (Alicia Hall) is also a great site to start a class discussion. This site has various 2-4 minute videos that addresses digital citizenship, ethics, and netiquette. Although, the videos are made with tweens they are sophisticated enough to begin an engaging discussion and class activity for my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners. Moreover, the age group of the participants of the videos are around the same age group as my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners’ children, therefore the videos would not only create class discussions but it would create discussions within their homes as well. Thus the Digital Citizenship Starter Kit would be perfect to implement during the beginning of the semester. Furthermore, even though all of my colleagues shared some wonderful technologies, I found that the aforementioned were perfect for my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners because of the simplicity and the effectiveness of them.     

 

References:

Byrne, R. (2013, December). Free Digital Citizenship Lesson Plans. Retrieved from Free Technology for Teachers: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/07/free-digital-citizenship-lesson-plans.html

Carnegie Mellon University. (2013, December). Carnegie Cyber Academy: Fun Stuff. Retrieved from Carnegie Mellon University: http://www.carnegiecyberacademy.com/funstuff.html#games

Common Sense Media Inc. (2013, December). Digital Citizenship Starter Kit. Retrieved from Common Sense Media: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum