SocialTech

Digital Citizenship

My notes from a  recent interview on Digital Citizenship for TES:

I see digital citizenship as a distinct but overlapping area in relation to digital literacy. Digital literacy is the ability to use, critically engage with and make use of digital tools and environments - it’s not just about supporting learners to understand and engage with the world, but about enabling learners to challenge, shape and change their worlds. Digital Citizenship for me addresses  social,  political, economic and legal participation in relation to the use of technologies and online environments. It isn’t an ‘add on’ to the area of citizenship as a whole, but a recognition that technologies and digital environments are a part of the real world, and they mediate all aspects of UK life: from meeting partners, finding jobs, contacting the local council, protesting, organising, developing our social and professional networks - the list goes on.

Children and young people grow up and develop their identities in both physical and digital environments. While they might be confident users of mobile and gaming technologies, and online sites like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Google, it doesn’t follow that they are socially and politically aware and engaged citizens in these spaces - just as simply being in the physical world doesn’t guarantee they have the tools and self confidence to understand their rights and responsibilities, and to take an active part in their communities and in governance.

Formal Citizenship education is a well articulated and understood area in England, which has been a part of the curriculum for over two decades. It’s defined by the Citizenship Foundation as “enabling people to make their own decisions and to take responsibility for their own lives and their communities.”

Many of the issues addressed through Citizenship education are inseparable from the use of technology and digital environments, and I’d like to see Citizenship within the curriculum reflect the realities of learners lives. Although it obviously depends on the teacher delivering the curriculum, typically schemes of work and lessons don’t address rights and responsibilities in digital environments, or political and  legal  issues online, or identity, conflict, and communities in online environments. The internet is still broadly framed as a place to get resources from, rather than as an active site of political life.

There isn’t a transparent relationship between how we act, are acted on and represent ourselves in physical environments and how we act, are acted on and represent ourselves in digital environments.  While most of the key concepts of Citizenship education apply to activities in online environments, a range of digital-specific issues have been left largely under explored. I’d include issues around the use of technologies for mainstream and grassroots political organisation and representation, the use of technology for governance and decision making, freedom of speech and censorship, digital copyright laws, privacy and data protection, harassment and discrimination. These are all issues that impact on young people's lives and their everyday use of technology that we aren’t addressing at national level.

Citizenship is a social responsibility. Any citizenship agenda that stops at ‘behaving well’ is potentially a dangerous one - the point of citizenship is not just to understand and do what you are expected to do by your community and by law. Citizenship should be about equipping young people to actively and critically engage in the local and national agendas and decision making that affect their, and their communities, lives. There are specific social, economic and political differences, as well as significant similarities, when it comes to rights and responsibilities in physical and digital environments . The social and legal challenges that life online pose are substantial and changes in these areas are rapid. The integration of mobile, gaming and web based technologies into everyday life means that new social norms are emerging and being argued over now.  Privacy is one of the key examples of this. What is a reasonable expectation of privacy, at time when many people are publishing personal information about themselves online? How do laws that aim to regulate and monitor online and mobile activity in order to protect people impact on our individual rights to and expectation of privacy? How are companies whose income is based on the tracking and selling of user activity data regulated?  

I’d very much like to see parents, as citizens themselves, supporting and engaging with Digital Citizenship. I also believe schools have a critical role to play and would like to see Citizenship education really get to grips with digital issues. I think there is also a huge role to play for parents and schools supporting young people in using and understanding the ways in which technology can help them organise - school councils have a vested interest in active engagement in the digital citizenship agenda. Young people are already using Facebook, Twitter and mobile technologies to effectively organise campaigns, protests and establish their own interest groups. How are we supporting them in this? What can we learn from them?

I'd identify three priorities in taking forward Digital Citizenship education. Firstly, schools need to understand the importance of Digital Literacy for all staff members, as well as for all learners. If a school doesn’t have an appreciation of the critical role technology can play for learning and that it already does play in social life of its community, and isn’t developing a culture of digital literacy, it’s missing out on key opportunities to support all learners. Secondly, national and local Citizenship education needs to more effectively integrate Digital Citizenship into curriculum design, resources and delivery. Thirdly, students need to be supported in their use and understanding of mobile and web based technologies, tools and environments for organising, collaborating and for governance.

Computer Science is not Digital Literacy

I'm a huge fan of the current wave of enthusiasm and political will to transform the way that ICT is delivered in schools. This morning at BETT, the UK's Education Secretary Micheal Gove will outline the Government's endorsement of the development of Computer Science and hopefully, a more interesting, relevant and creative computing curriculum.

I'm a big supporter of brilliant initiatives like Code Academy, who are making getting started with coding easier and more accessible than ever before, and the fantastic work going on to get children and young people not just consuming tech but creating it, such as Coding for Kids (check out the #codingforkids hash tag on Twitter for related links, discussion and resources).

I've also done a huge amount of work over the years promoting, supporting and contributing to the idea of digital literacy. I currently work for Leicester City Council, and this year will see the role out of a city-wide digital literacy programme which aims to support every teacher across the city's 25 Secondary schools in developing digital literacy, both as individuals and as whole school communities, positively impacting on education, providing opportunities for, and engaging every young person in the city. The City Council is working in partnership with the schools, both of Leicester's Universities, and with local community initiatives and entrepreneurs, as well as with national and international partners, to make sure our ambitions for the city are realised.

In a recent article, 'Digital literacy can boost employability and improve student experience' Sarah Knight argues that digital literacy - which she defines as "those capabilities that equip an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society" are important for the post-compulsory education sector to address. The recognition of how important digital literacy is to the post-compulsory sector throws the importance of ensuring children and young people are not disadvantaged by an education system that fails to equip them for real life into sharp relief.

While it was still around, Becta defined digital literacy as 

“…the skills, knowledge and understanding learners need to participate fully and safely in our increasingly digital world. 

It is a combination of:

functional technology skills

critical thinking

collaboration skills and

social awareness” (2010)

The definition I most use is similar to this, but I replace the passive connotations of social awareness with social engagement - active participation - as a better description of what digital literacy should look like.

For me, the main characteristics of the many of the available definitions of digital literacy are that:

• it supports and helps develop traditional literacies – it isn’t about the use of technology for it’s own sake or ICT as an isolated practice
• it's a life long practice – developing and continuing to maintain skills in the context of continual development of technologies and practices
• it's about skills and competencies, and critical reflection on how these skills and competencies are applied
• it's about social engagement – collaboration, communication, and creation within social contexts

It's dismaying then, to see in a week where we are seeing a huge move forward in the promotion of technology and a fresh look at how ICT as a subject area is designed and implemented in schools, to see digital literacy being used as an interchangeable term for computer science skills. 

Not being able to code doesn't make you digitally illiterate. Not being able to participate in  social, economic, cultural and political life because you lack the confidence, skills and opportunity to do so is what makes you digitally illiterate.

It should not be acceptable that after 11 years of compulsory education any young person should lack the skills and confidence to access information, or to be able to critically use and consume products and services. It should not be acceptable that we are neglecting to support children and young people in realising their rights to participation - as active, engaged community members and citizens. Digital literacy means the the skills and confidence to take an active role in engaging in networks, and in shaping and creating opportunities - social, political, cultural, civic, and economic, and we shouldn't be collapsing these broader rights into the relatively narrow concerns of computing science as a curriculum area. We need to be supporting and developing the work that schools, teachers and educators are doing across all curriculum areas, for formal education and extra-curricula and community based activities.

In Leicester, I am developing, designing and implementing a digital literacy programme in partnership that encompasses a wide range of areas - including basic skills, online identity management, digital research and learning skills, e-safety and cyberbullying, collaborative learning, and online citizenship. We will be supporting and celebrating computer science, coding, and ways in which young people can become active in creating and critically engaging with technology. But our ambition for our young people, education provision and communities, and the ways in which we can see these being transformed by digital literacy, certainly exceed the boundaries of computer science skills.

 

TeachMeet SEN 2012

Tickets here!

I'm very excited to be organising TeachMeet SEN 2012 - or TMSEN12, a meetup talking place later this month on Saturday 28th of January, in Leicester's lovely Phoenix Square.

What's a TeachMeet?

A TeachMeet is an informal meet up of people working in and passionate about education - they support grassroots professional development. Events are framed by short talks and demos from people working within education - sharing practice that works. You can check out the Wikipedia definition here.

Practitioner talk and demo slots at TMEN12 are typical of TeachMeet talk lengths - 7 minute micro presentations or 2 minute mini presentations. These are short to encourage a wide range and diversity of contribution, to make sure as many people attending as possible get the opportunity to share, and to make joining in more accessible and less scary for people who have never spoken at an event before.

What's different about TMSEN12?

1. This is a Special Education Needs (SEN) focused TeachMeet. Learners with SEN are a significant and diverse group, and we expect the first SEN focused TeachMeet to be an exciting one - reflecting the creativity, enthusiasm and the wide range of knowledge and approaches of practitioners.

2. This is the first face-to-face SEN focused TeachMeet. There was an online TeachMeet for Additional Support Needs/Special Education Needs back in April 2009. We are very proud to be continuing the tradition.

3. We recognise that parents and carers play an important role in supporting children and young peoples education, and that while parent and carer partnership with schools are always important, parents and carers sometimes play a particularly critical role in supporting learners with SEN. We also recognise that parents and carers of learners with SEN may home school. Because of this, we are also inviting parents and carers who would like to share effective practice to come along.

Is TMSEN12 just for SENCos and people who work at SEN Schools?

No! Every school supports learners with SEN.

What kind of thing do people talk about/demo at TeachMeet?

All sorts of things! You might speak about a really useful app, web tool or site; a technique that supports listening or speaking; an interesting and successful project; how you capture or share achievement; a simple, little change that has made all the difference to your learners; something you've created or a resource someone else has shared.

I think TeachMeet SEN is a great idea! How can I support it?

Excellent! Here are 7 ways you can help us:

1. Sign up to present your ingenious and effective practice. Come along and share.

Get your free ticket here, and then head over to the wiki to tell us what you will be presenting on.

2. Sign up to encourage and support. Get your free ticket here.

3. Tell people and organisation who need to know about TMEN12 - send them a link, encourage them to sign up to speak. We really appreciate it!

4. Tag your favorite blog posts, resources and ideas: Use #TMSEN12 on Twitter, TMSEN12 on Delicious. Let us know what and where else you tag resources. We will curate and share!

5. Watch the live stream and join in the debate on Twitter. The link will magically appear here and across the web nearer the time.

6. Sponsor TMSEN12! Help towards the event costs/resource for sponsor credit. Get in touch to find out more.

7. Suggest other ways you/people can support and celebrate TMEN12. Share your ideas!

 

Purpos/ed

  

The purpose of education is to enable people to understand, navigate, contribute to, challenge and change the world.


To many children and young people, adults seem distinguishable by their finishedness, their completeness. We have ‘grown up’. We have become inflexible, we have ceased to play, to imagine; our appetite for adventure has been diminished, not increased, by our understanding of the world; our wild and even gentle ambitions have been curtailed by the demands of making a living, of ‘the real world’. Instead of growing in confidence and maturity enough to hazard risk, to be wrong, to change our minds, the adult world seems very often to promote an infantile belief in the benefits and possibility of absolute certainty, mastery, fixedness. The assumption of due respect for this completedness is easy to recognise as often framing and establishing authority and providing boundaries within formal education: I am the one who knows, and you are the one who is in the process of knowing, of becoming the possessor of knowledge, of completion.

For me then, a fundamental purpose of education should be to acknowledge the inevitability of change, to celebrate the value of life as a thing in process, and to promote an awareness of other possibilities, other ways of doing things - of discoveries yet to be made and solutions yet to be invented. Change is, of course, not always positive. It can be unwelcome and damaging. It can be extremely difficult to come to terms with. Even positive changes - for example, changes in how people deal with and think about terrible things that have affected them, while they might free us up and make us happier people, or at least allow us to live our lives less painfully, are extremely difficult to go though. But the alternatives to change, if there are any, are entropy, denial and death.

Education should critically ensure children, young people and adults are equipped to be unsettled, to be confronted by difference, to be changed, and to effect change. Education is a conduit to different cultures, different places, different times - to different ways of thinking about things and doing things. Education provides us with an introduction to things unimagined and unencountered. It should provide the critical challenge to examine our beliefs, interpretations and horizons, the ability to reexamining ourselves in new contexts, to develop new interests, to review the ways in which we understand ourselves and our place in the world. The purpose of education should be to expand expectations, not to confine them - to support our learners in understanding the impact they can and do have on their world. We cannot expect education built upon, and educators who model, a fixation with certainty and inflexibility to meet the urgent and ongoing needs of pressing social, economic and political change.

 

Should you friend your students? The short answer is no

Earlier this year I delivered a further cyberbullying guidance document on behalf of Childnet International for the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Guidance follows up (and designed to compliment) cyberbullying guidance, a comprehensive document  that formed part of the Safe To Learn: Embedding anti-bullying work in schools suite of advice. While the initial document was really well received both within the UK & internationally, teachers unions and associations were increasingly being asked to deal with school employee cyberbullying cases - in which the staff member was the person being victimised. I welcomed the opportunity to produce further guidance which would both support employees in term of basic digital literacy information and encourage employers to meet their statutory obligations. The document set out, ambitiously, to encourage policy and procedure be put in place for preventing and dealing with cyberbullying as a whole school community issue - which includes meeting and recognising the specific needs, rights and responsibilities of employees. In no other area of harassment would it be acceptable for an employee to be expected to deal with cases that rose within the work place on their own - yet the reports from school staff included cases where cyberbullying was not taken seriously or understood, and where they had been expected to sort out situations for themselves.

Cyberbullying: Supporting School Staff (PDF) was released in April this year (Google doc version here).  I've been talking about the document a lot recently, and I want to just explore in a little more detail the thinking behind the advice given to school employees regarding friending students in social networking services. The actual text is (with my emphasis):

‘Friending’ refers to the act of giving contacts permission to view information or contact you within web-based services. The terminology will vary from service to service – ‘Friends’ may be called contacts or connections, for example. Most social sites enable you to give different levels of access and set privacy levels on your own content and activity. These functions will vary from service to service but typically include:
•     Information that is only available to the account holder
•     Information that is accessible by contacts on the account
holder’s approved list, and
•     Information that is made publicly available, either within
the service or across the whole of the internet.

‘Friends’ does not necessarily refer in this case to people who are your actual friends, although you may choose to restrict your connections to that. ’Friends’ in this context may also be work colleagues, family members, and people that you have met online.

If you have a social networking account, do not friend pupils or add them to your contact lists. You may be giving them access to personal information and allowing them to contact you inappropriately. They may also be giving you access to their personal information and activities

So the text above outlines three basic levels of permissions granularity that can be found on most sites, gives a definition of friending, and very explicitly says don't friend pupils. This is explicitly prescriptive advice, based on the case studies reviewed during the document negotiations, and an implicit understanding that the school staff accounts referred to are either personal, or contain elements of personal activity (I previously posted on a definition of three basic online identities, characterised as personal, professional, and organisational).

The approach taken then - don't friend pupils - reflects the kind of boundaries between staff and learners that we'd expect to see in offline behavior. You wouldn't expect a teacher to give a school aged pupil their home phone number, show them pictures of their friends or regale them with the weekends social exploits. Obviously friending isn't the only issue here - managing publicly available information so that you are comfortable with what co-workers, learners and employers can access about you is also addressed in the document. The research and anecdotal evidence indicates that we operate within social network services as if we were in a closed, private world. This isn't naive - I think it's a necessary fiction which makes social networking services human spaces. The do not friend advice is there to reinforce the message that private online is typically back of a post-card private, especially if we are within environments where we're not entirely sure who has permission to see what (*cough*Facebook*cough). It also reflects the leakiness of our online identities, the way in which the personal is often hand in hand with the professional.

What the advice isn't trying to do is to put anyone off evaluating social networking services to see if they could support learning & teaching effectively. The advice goes on to state:

If you want to use web-based social networking sites for a class or for the whole school, use a service that doesn’t give contacts access to personal information and updates, or allows collaboration without requiring permissions.

Alternatively ask pupils to create new, work-focused accounts for themselves, and run them as they would an online portfolio or CV.

You can find more information and advice about Social Network Services at www.digizen.org/socialnetworking.

Facebook, MI6 & basic digital literacy

Despite the neo-con conspiracy theory accusations, despite even the threats of Facebook The Movie (the specter of which I'm absolutely delighted about btw), Facebook continues to go from strength to strength in terms of empire building. According to recently released user & engagement stats, Facebook is currently the equivalent of the worlds fourth largest country, with around 240 million individual accounts. It's reporting a growth surge recently too - adding an incredible 700,000 to 750,000 new users per day.

The latest scandal to hit Facebook - and let's face it, one that isn't going to do their user stats any damage at all, is the tabloid and broadsheet friendly story centering on the British Secret Service, popularly known as MI6. Although MI6 has been recruiting on Facebook since September 2008, apparently their social media strategy hasn't stretched to the kind of employee guidance increasingly seen as critical in other industries. Recently recently appointed intelligence chief, John Sawers, ('C' as he will be codenamed in proper James Bond tradition), takes up his post in November. In the meantime, The Daily Mail are baying for Sawers blood (Daily Mail), following their crack investigation in to Mrs. Sawers completely unprotected Facebook pages.

Way back in October 2007, I asked the 200-ish audience members of the BIMA's Great Facebook debate - predominantly social media and related industry workers - to raise their hands if they felt 100% confident they understood who could see what on their Facebook accounts. About 4 hands went up, and mine wasn't one of them, despite the fact that I'd spent a year working on social networking service privacy settings. Since then, the third party application explosion has continued to muddy already the unfathomable waters of overly granular permissions settings. By January 2008, if came as little surprise to anyone working in the social networking service and privacy space that Facebook was being investigated by the UK's Information Commisioners Office for potential Freedom of Information Act infringements.

Currently, Facebook is rejigging it's operation model, simultaneously moving towards a more open platform and trying to make user permissions more understandable, including jettisoning it's regional networks in favor of sharing information between groups. All this is good news, and I look forward to tracking Facebook's progress. In the meantime, the best advice I can offer anyone is if you are using any service and aren't clear about who can see your content or how the permissions work, act as if the service is completely public. Don't post anything you would mind your mum, boss, colleague or local Daily Mail journo seeing.

The real story in the Sawers fiasco is, once again, is the one that research in the area has consistently pointed up. In general, people do not read terms of service or privacy statements. People like social networking services because of the warm glow of friendly, trusted association (some would say homophily) they submerge themselves in. Security and permissions settings are only as good as people can immediately or at least easily understand, leaving children, young people, vulnerable adults & MI6 potentially at risk.

Within increasingly connected societies, where the online is commonly integrated into our everyday social transactions, we need to be smarter about the implications of how we use services, and ensure that everyone has access to basic information. There was a huge fuss made when an leaked draft of the Rose Review mentioned a service - Twitter - as the kind of platform that digital literacy may support. Although there are obvious limitations in teaching platforms and applications rather than a focus on skills, competencies and understanding (and it only takes a cursory look our current Microsoft heavy curriculum to see the problems of this approach) - what the MI6 debacle demonstrates is the importance of recognising how and why people use services, and equipping them to use the social web in ways that don't compromise personal, or international, security. 

The Information & Privacy Commisioner/Onterio has a recently updated PDF on How to protect your privacy on Facebook.

You can find basic information about online identity management relevant to people in all work places in my recent work on behalf of Childnet International for the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families: Cyberbullying, supporting school staff (PDF) 

If your organisation doesn't have a current employer and employee social web strategy in place, get in touch and I can help you design and implement one. I do special security service rates.

Related posts: ABC of permissions granularity

ThoughtFest 09

Last week I was fortunate to be one of the attendees at the fantastic Thought Fest 2009 conference, held at the University of Salford's Think Lab. Organised by organized by Pontydysgu with the support of the JISC Evolve network and the European Mature-IP project, the event attracted top class learning technology researchers and practitioners from across Europe. Potential attendees pitched for place prior to the event, submitting their ideas for outline sessions - Dave White from Oxford University & I formed a digital literacy tag team and were lucky enough to snaffle two of the highly prized places.

About 30 delegates (most of whom are on Twitter) attended the two day event designed to bring together researchers in Technology Enhanced Learning in an open forum to debate the current issues surrounding educational technologies. Within a semi-structured (and pretty mobile) framework that was negotiated by delegates, we particularly focused on theory into practice: how and where research impacts on practice and where practice drives research.

The whole event was excellent, but I'll share some of my highlights.

Our (the red) team came a respectable third in the diabolically evil ViolaQuest, which was masterminded by Nicola Whitton and Rosie Jones, a couple of the UK's leading Alternative Reality Game (ARG) researchers and designers. The game involved unraveling mainly geographic and environmental clues. They also managed to include the Emerge bearded lady meme:

 
Photo credit: Rozberry redteam

There were some great show and discuss sessions, including Maria Perifanou on using Wikiquests in language Learning, Pat Parslow on Digital ID & Kathrin Kaufhold on the Awesome project.

I missed out on Jen Hughes's digital cartoon workshop, taking part instead in the podcasting workshop led by Andreas Auwärter. Dave & I picked the travelogue assignment, and produced a gonzo journalism piece on The Salford Lift Experience, inspired in part by out experience of the Maxwell Building lifts. Unfortunately, half of this masterpiece was lost to the random gods of audio, so the world will never hear Dave's very informative description of the up and down buttons, nor believe there was a student who felt the lift experience in Salford had drastically improved over the last two years, various other lift based interviews or the toilet on the stairwell incident. For those of you who can be bothered, the last part is here:

Listen to The Salford Lift Experience (mp3)

There were some excellent recordings produced on the day, notably a advert for online identity management cleaning services, which I'll link to as soon as they go up.

The award for most awesome presentation has to go however to the SAPO campus team, who will be rolling out the worlds first institution wide supported PLE this September. You can see their presentation slides here. Basically, The University of Aveiro are moving away from the managed learning system model and providing a supported Personal Learning Environment (PLE) service linking in University functionality with member selected and supported web 2.0 distributed activity. Why is this amazing? The global edtech community have been talking about how institutions can engage with learner-centered PLEs for a while now, but Aveiro and the SAPO team are putting it into practice. Campus wide. In September. You can find out more and ask questions over at the Though Fest site.

Edublog Awards 2008

Its the Edublog Awards 2008! Dust off your party outfits and get ready to join us on Saturday night for the spectacular 5th awards show, celebrating the vibrancy of blog and social media practice to support learning. 

Voting is still open across this years 16 categories, and every vote still counts since most of the category nominees are within spitting distance of each other. James is holding the vote doors open like a veritable Atlas until the last minute possible this year. Needless to say, the live online awards show will be well worth attending. The Edublog Awards team - me, Dave Cormier, Jeff Lebow, James Farmer, Jo Kay, warmly invite you all over to the multisite party.

When? 

This years event is scheduled for:

• GMT/UTC: 11pm, Saturday 20 Dec 2008
• AEST: 10am, Sunday 21 Dec 2008
• SLT: 3pm, Saturday 20 Dec 2008

Get your local time details here!

Where?

The fabulous team at EdTechTalk will be providing a web-based audio stream of the event. The landing page for web based listening and text based chat will be http://edtechtalk.com/live. Head over there if you'd like to listen in live (low bitrate audio-only stream for those with with slower connections), and catch the ustream of SL activities, and chat amongst the attendees.

There's also a Facebook page for those of you over there, and there will be live updating over at Twitter.

For the second year running we will also be meeting over at Second Life, thanks to the wonderful Jo Kay. The meeting point on the beautiful Islands of jokaydia will be the jokaydia Landing point (SLurl) for newbie support and pre-event hot chocolate. The ceremony will be held in our new auditorium (SLurl).

There are limits on the number of visitors to a Second Life Island (& this isn't entirely to do with how big my dress will be this year, so do get your seat early! There will also be an overflow area with chat bridge and audio streaming at the jokaydia Meeting Hall (SLurl) for those who don't get a seat but would still like to hang out inworld.

We are all very excited abut this years chat bridge - connecting Second Life attendees to  our web-based participants. You’ll be able to access the chat room here just prior to the event!

The fabulous residents of jokaydia have also lined up a post event beach party and celebration of yet another year of great blogging. The party will start right after the awards ceremony: Meet at jokaydia Beach! (SLurl)

2008 Edublog Awards Nominees Display!

Dont forget to visit the 2008 Edublog awards Nominees Display which celebrate all 210 nominees and their achievements this year. The display is a permanent structure on the Islands of jokaydia and serves as a great resource for educators. You can visit the Edublog Awards Display at jokaydia (SLurl).

Those nominations in full:

1. Best individual blog

Mobile Technology in TAFE
Education Investigation
Learn Online
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
Bionic Teaching
SCC English
Nadstar’s Blog
Teachers at risk
John Connell
Doug - off the record
Mathemetics Learning
The Scholastic Scribe
Newly Ancient
Chrisina’s Classroom Early Childhood blog
Cliotech
ICTlogy
Theology in the Vineyard
Computer Science Teacher - thoughts and information from Alfred Thompson
Darcy’s blog
The Edublogger
Teaching and Learning Design
The Bamboo Project
All teachers are learners - All learners are teachers
Sarah’s Musings
Using Blogs in science Education
Learning with ‘e’s
What It’s Like on The Inside
EFL20
Generation YES Blog
Betty’s Blog
Teach42
Creating Lifelong Learners
Always Learning
The English Blog
David Truss: Pair-a-dimes for your Thoughts

2. Best group blog

Salford University Occupational Therapy Education blog
SCC English
WorkLiteracy
The Stratford Sentinel
Mortarboard Blog
Pontydysgu
Brandon Hall Research Workplace Learning Today
Scholastic News Blog
Digital Learning Environments
Tomorrow’s Trust
The Chancellor’s New Clothes
ECO group
360
Leader Talk
PortablePD.CA
Youth Voices

3. Best new blog

Fled: Flexible Learning Education Design
Yuichi’s Games
Angela Maiers
Huzzah
Dkzody’s Weblog
2JE Shining Stars
Chrisina’s Classroom Early Childhood blog
Journeys on the road
Human
Teaching in Second Life
Fiona’s Journey
Christy Bowman
Technology in The Classroom
Thumann Resources

4. Best resource sharing blog

Free Technology for Teachers
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day/
Mobile Technology in TAFE
Videoconferencing Out on a Lim
Woodchurch Science
Teach J: For Teachers of Journalism and Media
Langwitches
Edina Publich Schools NUA Program
What’s New @Scholastics.com
ZaidLearn
Teaching College Math
Around the Corner - MGuhlin
Stephen’s Web
meta-ot
Discovering Biology in a Digital World
Thumann Resources
Creative Teaching
Welcome to NCS-Tech
Jane’s E-learning Pick of the Day
Learning technology teacher development blog

5. Most influential blog post

Becoming a more reflective Individual Practitioner
Why Can’t Inner City Kids Learn/a>
The Glass Bees
Planning to share versus just sharing
The Time is Now
Be an elearning action hero
President-elect Barack Obama
The truth is Out There
The New Digital Divide?
Order for Closure
Getting our Knickers in a twist?
The Macgyver Project: Genomic Dna Extraction And Gel Electrophoresis Experiments Using Everyday Materials
Monkey Business
Ten Tips for Growing Your Learning Network

6. Best teacher blog

Teaching in the 408
Mrs Cassidy’s Classroom Blog
Science Of The Invisible
The Cool Cat Teacher
Practical Theory
dy/dan
Web.Cad.6abc
Kevin’s Meandering Mind
Creating Lifelong Learners
Teaching College Maths
Bald Worm’s Blog
Betty’s Blog
Songhai Concept
Bellringers
Science Teacher
Sliced Bread
The Journey
Reflections on Teaching
Cliff’s Notes
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
OllieBray.com
Nashworld
Box of Tricks
Mysterious Teaching
The Why of it all
Always Learning
On an e-journey with Generation Y
ICT in my Classroom
Educating Alice
Kenneth’s ESL Blog

7. Best librarian / library blog

Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog
UoL Library Blog
Paul Walk’s weblog
Hey Jude
School Library Journal
Blue Skunk Blog
TechnoTuesday

8. Best educational tech support blog

The Edublogger
The Clever Sheep
The Wired Campus
UK Web Focus
Geeked
Tech Tutors
Teach42
Teacher in a Strange Land
Off on a Tangent
efoundations
JoeWoodOnline
Teachers love Smartboards
Langwitches
Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org

9. Best elearning / corporate education blog

Britannica Blog
eLearning Technology
Presentation Zen
Windows to Open Source
Making Change
Tech Tools
Laurel Papworth
TechnOT
Andy’s black hole
Janet Clarey

10. Best educational use of audio

Wicked Decent Learning
Project Xiphos
Twenty Minutes for Tech
Teachers Teaching Teachers
Parents as Partners
Bildum im Dialog
Integrating ICT
Bit By Bit
Secondary Worlds
Ed Tech Talk

11. Best educational use of video / visual

Digital Ethnography
Tamaki Intermediate School
Geography at the Movies
Flick School
Video 2 Zero
Steve Spangler blog
Moving at the Speed of Creativity
Murdoch University Island in Second Life
Qik MAMK
TEFL Clips
The Common Craft Show

12. Best educational wiki

eToolBox
The 2008 Comment Challenge
Kidpedia
Educational Origami
WikiEducator
S.D.Public School, Pitampura
Learning in Maine
Digitally Speaking
Clif’s Wiki
Miss Baker’s Biology Class
F-ALT
Salks Periodic Table
Flat Classroom Project 2008
School AUP 2.0
Classroom Displays
Digital Media Across Asia

13. Best educational use of a social networking service

EFL Classroom 2.0
Fireside Learning
Classroom 2.0
Maine Holocaust Education Network
Youth Voices
MACUL Space
Principles of Biology
Ed Links
Teen Second Classroom
My Learning Space

14. Best educational use of a virtual world

Jokadia
Discovery Education Second Life
Drexel Island
Edunation
Oh! Virtual Learning!
Literary Worlds

15. Best class blog

A really different place
Risley Roarer’s Blog
Learning Area 20
Al Upton
Extreme Biology
English Advertising Class
Mr. Kootman’s Class
Remote Access

16. Lifetime achievement award

Stephen Downes
Scott Leslie
Will Richardson
Nancy White
David Warlick
Chris Lehmann
Graham Wegner
Michele Martin
Jay Cross

Notes towards Digital Literacy

Anyone who has talked to me for any length of time over the past couple of years will have been hard pressed to have avoided my growing preoccupation with the UK's digital literacy agenda, or rather, lack of one. However, while I've been talking about this a lot, I haven't made many written remarks outside of policy contributions and consultations. Hopefully this brief post will act as a marker of progress rather than just a register of the current limitations of the UK education system.

A lot of progress has been made recently in terms of the e-safety agenda, for example with the publication in March of Dr. Byron's Safer Children in a Digital World,  and the approval of all the reports recommendations by the UK Government, and the establishment of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) at the end of September this year. Additional moves toward modernising our Duty of Care towards pupils and staff, both providing and signposting support and in building awareness, responsibility and resilience in using technologies, has come in the form of e-safety provision within the QCA'a new curriculum and in the Department for Children, Schools and Families Cyberbullying Guidance that I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to.

However, while it is a critical area of development and resourcing, e-safety alone is not enough. To regard it as anything except a critical element within a wider digital literacy framework, and to attempt to teach it alongside an antiquated, generally programme-specific ICT education is to short change our learners, and to fail to recognise the technological, social and economic shifts that have take place globally. To not integrate and model good practice in digital literacy has huge social consequences - from potentially disadvantaging individuals and communities in terms of social and economic opportunities, to the society-wide disadvantage we risk by not ensuring that everyone is in a position to make their voice and opinions heard within the law, and to engage technology as a way of bringing about community facilitation of all kinds, social organisation and change. 

So what is digital literacy? Currently, it is a discussion that isn't happening, but which needs to be taking place nationally and publicly amongst the major organisational stakeholders (across government, industry, and education), informed by the local conversations of learners, parents, education sector workers, and employers. 

Digital literacy then refers to a set of knowledge and competencies (including social skills and cultural competencies) required by technological, social and economic changes in society. It should covers a range of areas; skills and understandings that ensure everyone can get the most out of their engagement with technology. It includes e-safety and wellbeing, but also includes collaboration and communication skills, rights and responsibilities, ethical and environmental issues, commercial practices, privacy and security issues, digital identity and citizenship, along with finding, evaluating and applying information.

Some of these skills can be highly complex. However, there are ways of supporting even very young learners to understand important and relevant concepts, such as keeping oneself safe and helping others when using technologies. Conceptually, skills and behaviours supported within the framework of digital literacy should share the same ambitions as those outlined in Every Child Matters - being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well being.

These last couple of years have seen the establishment of an evidence base and a public recognition of the huge personal, professional and social impacts of new technologies. What many edtechs have been involved in is describing new social realities, practices and opportunities. What I'd dearly like to see now is a push forward from the work done by Ofcom, Childnet, and Becta (amongst many) in establishing the current state of play and an active engagement in developing new models and frameworks.

Young People and Social Networking Services

I'm delighted to announce that the Young People and Social Networking Services report that I have been working on for Childnet International, with the generous support of Becta, is now available from Childnet's digital literacy and citizenship site, Digizen.

It's a pretty comprehensive report, with the whole shebang available for download under a Creative Commons License on site, or from here:

Download fullReport.pdf

and weighing in at 37 pages. The online version breaks the sections up for your viewing pleasure - so you can just dip in to the sections which are of interest or use to you. The report was written from a UK schools and Further Education perspective, although much of the information will be useful to people working outside of these two contexts.

It isn't a completely introductory level document, but should be useful and informative for people who have a responsibility care towards children and young people - including governors, principals and senior management teams, Safeguarding boards and local authorities - people who are making decisions concerning  educational provision and resourcing.  It will also be very handy for anyone working within the sector and wanting to use internet based services with young people.

What's in the pack?

What are Social Networking Services? looks at where we are in terms of definitions, and  splits services up into six main categories: Profile-based services (eg Bebo, Facebook, MySpace); Content-focused services (eg Flickr, YouTube); White-label networks (although I could have written a book about these); Multi-User Virtual Environments (although some of these aren't necessarily social networks - particularly those designed for younger children); Mobile services; and Microblogging/Presence update services (Social Search engines & Lifestream aps also get a mention as adjunct services). The version that's on the site is the short one. you can download the 9 page PDF on site or from here:

Download social-networking-overview.pdf

Evaluating Social Networking Services comes in two parts: an evaluation chart which has an online version and an easier-for-me-to-read downloadable version:

Download Sns.pdf

That's designed to be printed off big (well, A3). The services which were kind enough to take part are used as examples to help people make their own evaluations of services. Big thanks to everyone at Bebo, Facebook, Yahoo!, MySpace, Ning, Taking It Global and Google who pitched in and gave permissions. There is also a checklist guide that accompanies the chart, designed to walk you through what to look out for when evaluating services for use with young people. This covers a lot of things, including profile privacy, moderation, customisation, security and access issues, data management tools, and interoperability.

Benefits & Opportunities is a section looking at the potential positives for young people  and organisations of using social networking services.

Barriers & Risks looks some of the issues preventing educators from exploring social networking services and some of the e-safety issues involved.

The Ideas and Examples returns to the different kinds of social networking services outlined in the first section and looks at what educators in the UK and around the world are doing. I'd like to continue to develop and expand this section so all  suggestions are welcome - and of course you can always enter your fantastic project for this years International Edublog Awards :)

So that's it! Except to again thank the fantastic advisory board who worked on the project, keeping an eye on how the research was developing and what the final report looked like.