Wow. Time has flown so fast. It was a short journey but a wonderful one. I am grateful to Dr. Katia and all my classmates for such a knowledgeable journey. I have learned a lot from EC&I 830 course. The debates were very interesting and we all worked hard to critically bring the views and recognise others’ views and ideas in the debates.
I worked with my classmate Lovepreet and together we have completed our Summary of Learning. I am also thankful to Lovepreet for her time and efforts in this assignment.
In the recent decade, the technology has changed the meaning of education and we can see that learning process is becoming digital these days. Whenever we work online, we leave some data in the form of digital footprint. A digital footprint is a collection of information about a person’s online activities. These people people lack mindset to use social media. This is becoming more apparent in today’s secondary schools. The question arises whom we should blame? Teachers or parents? Educators and parents both have a role to play in teaching kids about digital citizenship and guiding them about the digital footprints on the internet.
It can be difficult to strike a balance between permitting and encouraging children to use social media in school while also offering instructions for proper usage. The truth is that the majority of today’s high school students are unaware of proper online behaviour. In the Mike Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship, its explained that how we can be good citizens online. We may begin to properly prepare high school kids for college and the future by focusing on five twayswhen handling the issue of digital footprints.
Is it sound funny? Well, this is a good way to check your accountability online. Beginning with a simple task, such as a Google search, students can “enhance” their digital footprint. Encourage kids to “see what the world sees” by doing so. Try to scroll for the first few pages of Google and check if you exist there or not. If you find your name or ID, try to figure it out if it belongs to you.
Number 2: Preparation and Resources
Schools and teachers must develop some innovative approaches to teaching digital citizenship. Teachers can invite Guest Speakers in the classrooms to teach about digital footprints or choose some good reading material for kids. A student’s digital footprint is frequently based on their social media connections and interest-based social media apps. In this academic component is mostly absent.
Students should be taught to ask themselves, “Would you post this if your mother was reading it?” in addition to the frequent phrase “think before you post” and the golden rule. Because educators can only teach so much about digital citizenship, the expectation is that children will develop an awareness over time. To customize learning, teachers must establish relationships with kids. Moreover, participation of parents is must.
Number 4 Activate Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a notification service that alerts users to changes in search results. When new results are available, the user is notified through email if his or her name matches the search query. By activating these alerts one can save themselves from cyberbullying or hacking. If you find that you have not made any changes and still you get alerts, notify the support team immediately.
Number 5: Strong Passwords
While creating social media accounts, try to choose strong passwords. Your passwords can contain special characters, uppercase letters, and numbers in your passwords. Both teachers and parents should guide kids to decide strong passwords and they should change it from time to time.
For today’s high school kids, digital footprints serve as a reminder to utilize social media responsibly and for academic goals. A foundation can be formed utilizing the principles listed above, as well as many others. Our children will be able to comprehend the importance of digital citizenship and eventually model it for their peers if we raise awareness as educators by teaching the skills associated with it. Students will be guided in the construction of their digital footprint with the help of their parents.
With the advancement of technology, online education is becoming popular. Over the decade, the use of the internet is becoming popular and both teachers and students love to study online. Also, if I think about the Covid times, online education and using tools have become popular and children were able to continue their studies.
In this debate, both agree and disagree teams came up with strong points. I will discuss some of them in my blog.
AGREE
Digital Inequality: Every kid does not have laptops or high-speed internet. This gives rise to digital access and digital inequity.
Screen time: With the use of laptops and the internet the screen time of students gets increased and it can impact their health. They can have sleep disorders, myopia, stress, and anxiety.
Isolation: Students feel isolated while learning online which can impact the social-emotional learning process. Moreover, students can become unmotivated and can struggle with their appearance when they have to come to class and do face-to-face interactions.
Physical education: With online study, it is difficult to perform physical work and the question arises that “how one can do physical education classes”.
Music and drama classes are hindered by online classes.
Assessment:It is difficult to access these classes. Assessment is not done properly in virtual education. Virtual learning causes fatigue and mental exhaustion. As a result, students fear losing and lack behind. Physical schools provide breakfast and provide safety, security, and stability.
The disagree team said that online learning is a perfect supplement for learning. Online learning comes with many benefits and we have seen this in lockdown times.
More flexibility: Self-pace and allows to set up the schedule and students and teachers can be flexible in the learning process.
Small Groups: Teachers are able to work in small groups and one can learn at any time and anywhere.
Time: It saves time for students and it develops important skills, especially in terms of technology. Online education meets the unique needs of the classroom. If I talk about the feedback, the online homework is easy to check and quickly assessed.
Disability: A person with visual and hearing impairment can get the most of the benefits from online learning. For example, dyslexia as kids can change the font size while learning online.
It eases the pressure of harassment in schools.
Fewer distractions: Online learning prevents distractions as a student read and write alone in a closed environment.
https://giphy.com/explore/virtual-teacher
Conclusion
Parents are concerned about their children’s long-term impacts of online learning. Children’s education has been disrupted, and their social, emotional, and mental well-being has suffered as a result of the change. Parents are rightfully concerned about the negative consequences of online learning, but there are some positive outcomes as well.
When the pandemic drove schools across the country to close, parents, teachers, and children were caught off guard. Even though some schools have reopened, others have remained closed, and millions of kids continue to learn remotely to some extent. Families and educators can gain useful information and utilize this as an opportunity to progress as the influence of online education become more apparent.
With the advancement of technology, cellphones provides us all the features and with just one click we can do what almost everything. Many students at schools try to hide their cell phones from professors. Initially, cell phones were prohibited in schools. It makes a lot of sense that children are not allowed to use their cellphones during school hours.
Cellphones in the classroom provide even another motive for pupils to attack one another. Children, for example, will now be bullied based on the sort of phone they have, while others may not have a phone at all and may be mocked for not being as wealthy as others. Students may become unsuccessful and ashamed if they do not have a cellphone and the job they are performing in class necessitates one. Cellphones provide pupils with mobile internet access, which fosters cyberbullying.
Parents and teachers frequently disagree about whether or not it is necessary to bring cell phones to school. Smartphones, on the one hand, serve as a means of communication. Parents may find out where their children are at any given time. On the other hand, cellphones can be used to contact a teacher or parents. Without digital equipment, studying at a distance is impossible. Parents sometimes complain that their children spend more time playing video games or chatting on Twitter than in class. Schools throughout the country are adopting tight cell phone regulations as school administrators strive to enhance student achievement and the overall student learning experience. Cell phones ringing in the classroom can disturb classes and divert students’ attention away from the material at hand. Cheating has been accomplished through the use of text messaging and students can click the test answers and send it to one another. Schools have the authority to prohibit cell phones from being brought onto the campus. However, according to government policy, it is the role of principals to evaluate if this is suitable.
Keeping all the points in mind, I want to say that no doubt that cellphones have advantages but we can not ignore the drawbacks of bringing smartphones in a classroom. It is difficult for one teacher to keep an eye on every student’s action and also we teachers do not have full rights to invade the privacy of kids. Why to bring smartphones in classroom, when a student can access it at their home. Also, we can have a locker facility where students can keep their phones and use it in break time. Moreover, I agree that we can revise policies to bring cellphones but it will be difficult to assure that these policies are in practice throughout the school. It is the school’s responsibility to take care of the security of kids and teach them evacuation procedures and mock drills rather than promoting cell phones in emergencies. We can find a right balance in allowing or banning cellphones in a classroom.
With the rapid advancement of technology, we are always looking for the latest and greatest device or gadgets.Although it makes our life a lot easier and more interesting, it also has a significant drawback. One big issue or concern is our inability to communicate with one another. Nowadays, it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have their phone in their hands. This became a huge source of anxiety for me because I am not hooked on my phone and like to live in the moment. When my family gets together in the living room to unwind at the end of the day, I observe that everyone has their phone in their hand and no one looks at one other or has a genuine conversation.
DEFINING THE HARM
If I talk about kids, parents are finding it more difficult to spend quality time with their children because they are stressed out by work and family ties. These days our nanny is Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
In our class debate, Gunpreesh, Dami, and Fasiha came up with very strong points that how we have forgotten the days when children use to play outside in the evening, eating bubble gums and skating. These days social media app has overruled outdoor activities and kids love to scroll through their news feed rather than playing any game. It is becoming an addiction that ultimately is ruining the health of kids. They are getting affected by diseases like anxiety, stress, myopia, and so on. Moreover, we cannot ignore cyberbullying. People abuse their authority for more harm than good, resulting in cyberbullying, which is a separate topic for discussion. Others may use it to defraud you or engage in other heinous acts. However, one advantage of having technology is that information is easily distributed and we can get what we need to know faster, and communication is now possible at the speed of light, which is also incredibly useful. I remember the days when a blue whale challenge came on the games app and how many kids did suicide and died because of that challenge.
THE ANOTHER SIDE
But we cannot ignore the benefits of social media. As said by Jennifer – ‘People fear change and they fear social media too. Social media is helping in building relationships and it especially helps those who feel like rejected in society. As explained in Mike’s Nine elements of Digital Citizenship, parents and teachers can teach the kids how they use social media wisely and how they can be respectful online.
Team 2 came up with an example of Swimming that it needs guidance and supervision and the same applies with social media, Dami came up with a point that Kids are natural swimmers. I want to say that I agree that kids are natural swimmers but if proper practice, supervision, and guidance are not given then a kid can be in a dangerous situation.
All in all, I want to say that we cannot avoid social media but I think one can be kind on the internet and create beautiful memories as these memories are on a place which we call as internet and will stay there till we remove them.
