Final Refection #5

Before beginning this course, I was super nervous and a bit intimidated. I had heard it was a super hard class with lots of readings and assignments per week. The first week was indeed very difficult for me. Sure enough, there were lots of readings and videos each week. I think part of the difficulties I experienced was time management, daily stresses, teaching kindergarten full time, and taking a class during the holidays. I could not wait till thanksgiving break so I could have extra time to get things done. Defining digital citizenship was how we started the course, I defined it as being a good citizen in the digital world. As a kindergarten teacher, the word citizen is used quite a lot when we learn about our community, which is most of the year during social studies. We discuss being a good citizen at home, school, and in the community. We emphasize the word good.

My favorite topic during the class was when we discussed digital footprint. It made me reflect on how we are portrayed online. Digital footprint is the trail of your online activity such as things searched, copied, broadcast, and is permanent (Common Sense Education, 2013). I question my use of social media all the time and I am one of those people that do not like to post or overshare. Intentional digital footprint is things you want to leave behind or things you are aware that are out there about you, like a tweet you sent out. Unintentional footprint is something you can’t control like you can your intentional footprint. I’ve been tagged on posts that I didn’t necessarily want to be tagged.

Copyright laws have existed for centuries, so we saw a bit of how it started, and how it's going. Week 3 was when we learned more about copyright. This was definitely the hardest week for me out of all the topics. Copyright was the part of the course I hope to continue to learn more of and apply what I learn in my classroom. Copyright, plagiarism, public domain, fair use, all these terms have my head spinning. Was that week overwhelming? Yes. So many videos and reading, and self questioning. It really had me questioning how many times I did something that could be considered copyright infringement. I really need to do better and know better, especially if I want to model these behaviors for my students as part of being a good digital citizen.

As hard as this class has been, I have learned a lot in such a small amount of time. I have a great group of peers in this course that are always helping out and sending information on our Slack channel. Digital citizenship was a term I was familiar with, but now I feel like I have a better grasp on the term and everything it encompasses. From defining digital citizenship, to learning about digital footprint, copyright, and cyberbullying, I have expanded on my knowledge and will continue to learn and grow for my students. I hope to be able to help my peers, students, and daughter with all things digital citizenship in the future.

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Reference

Common Sense Education. (2013, August 12). What’s in your digital footprint? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P_gj3oRn8s