Building a positive school culture through digital citizenship

Did you know the average student spends about 14,040 hours in school from K-12-? It’s no wonder that principals, teachers, students, and their families all try to develop a positive school culture to encourage lifelong learning.

When we talk about school or classroom culture, it’s that “je ne sais quoi” that comes from common goals, aligned values, and shared expectations. Such norms guide all stakeholders’ attitudes and behaviors. And, all is underscored with a fundamental sense of respect for one another.

Today, that sense of belonging and participation can be developed in the offline world as well as the online one. So, it’s not surprising that digital citizenship is a key factor in how schools come together to build a positive school culture.

Building a positive school culture through technology

Take a moment to reflect on your school’s motto or philosophy. Most don’t overtly mention technology, but in today’s learning, technology is becoming an integral way of giving students more access, more autonomy, and more agency in their learning journey. The focus has shifted from memorizing facts to applying learning to real-life scenarios (if you’ve never listened to Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, now is the time!).

Most schools focus on empowering individuals to thrive and grow into their own, and technology can be a tool to help shape such personalized learning paths. Learners of any age can tap into multimedia content in an instant for answers and inspiration and then voice their own artistic expression within minutes by producing and sharing their own images, videos, and music. Yet as Spiderman’s uncle said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So, how are your school, staff, and students prepared to live up to your school’s vision with technology at the forefront?

Educational videos for digital citizenship

Flocabulary has several engaging videos to spark a meaningful conversation about digital citizenship for students:

Want to learn more about bringing Flocabulary to your school or district?

How to build a positive school culture through digital citizenship

As leaders, you must set the tone and ensure your staff is familiar and comfortable with the safeguards your site has put in place around adopting new tools, modeling accepted use, and protecting students’ personal identifiable information (PII). Remember, many of your staff did not grow up with these current technologies and therefore have no prior knowledge from which to lead. Plus, the landscape is ever-changing, so consider how you share best practices throughout the year.

Here are some examples:

• Invite teachers to share their best practices during an Appy Hour
• Make the rounds through informal observations via a pineapple chart, which is a system that allows teachers to invite one another into their classrooms for informal observation
• Since students are digital natives, invite them to be part of a tech leadership team or serve as school experts through a Mouse Squad

Adopting digital citizenship-friendly technology tools

As part of building school culture, many schools grapple with outlining and enforcing policies around acceptable use of technology, from personal and school devices, to social media guidelines. Yet these policies are just the beginning.

By adopting tools that allow you to model the best of technology, you can help develop true digital citizens who lean on healthy habits of mind to steer them through the vast digital landscape. Lean on resources like Common Sense, who is known for their K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum and their comprehensive ratings and reviews designed for educators.

These reviews rate edtech tools based on a 14-point rubric revolving around the pillars of engagement, pedagogy, and support. You may want to collaborate with your staff to create your own rubric to evaluate a tool’s usefulness and place in your school’s learning ecosystem. Some questions to consider:

Evaluation rubric for digital citizenship-friendly technology tools

• How does this tool promote student voice and choice?
• How is the content curated and organized for exploration?
• How does this tool support high-order thinking skills?
• How does this tool provide opportunities to create as well as consume?
• How does this tool address multiple learning styles through multimedia presentation?
• How does this tool comply with accessibility and adaptive learning standards?
• How does this tool have safeguards for students’ privacy?
• How does this tool share evidence of its efficacy in the classroom?
• How often is this tool updated to reflect educator feedback?
• How does this tool offer customer support?

Flocabulary’s Common Sense ratings

The tools you use should also promote best practices of digital citizenship for students. Take Flocabulary as an example to put through your educators’ review process. While the hip-hop videos promote literacy, “Flocab,” as it is lovingly called by teachers, is one such tool that can be used across the curriculum for a myriad of learning objectives, while promoting responsible consumption and creation of online content.

Here’s how and why Flocabulary has high ratings:

Providing education for all

To begin with, you can level the playing field by providing comprehensive training so that educators can get up and running with a new tool like Flocabulary. Camp Engage provides free professional development and certificates throughout the year, bringing bite-sized learning opportunities for educators.

Research-based content and activities

Flocabulary’s research-designed approach drives multisensory learning and exposure, student engagement, cultural relevancy, and applied learning. These efficacy studies illustrate student achievement and growth. The results of this study indicate that The Word Up program is very effective in increasing and improving students vocabulary development.

Encourages high-order thinking skills

Flocabulary’s video lesson library runs deep across all grades and subject areas, including language arts, math, science, and social studies. Teachers can easily search for standards-aligned videos and activities to ensure students are progressing through the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Flocabulary also addresses life skills like social and emotional learning (SEL) and includes digital citizenship videos, which bolsters students’ sense of belonging and community, thereby building a positive school climate.

Provides real-world application

Flocabulary’s Week in Rap feature provides teachers and students alike a chance to digest current events in a creative manner. It’s also an opportunity for students to practice their media literacy skills as they evaluate the types of current events being shared and for what purposes.

Promotes student expression

As the most popular music genre in the world, hip-hop is sometimes referred to as “global youth culture.” Connecting learning to students’ deep, diverse cultural knowledge not only creates a classroom environment of trust and respect but is also proven to help students process new information.

Flocabulary’s student rap contests promote students’ artistic expression, which is a way to differentiate learning further and promote community involvement. As students develop their individual voices, they become empowered to contribute to their communities, further building a positive school culture.

Boost digital citizenship and school culture with Flocabulary

With Flocabulary, students and teachers grow a greater appreciation of the online content they are consuming, while being inspired to create their own. Flocabulary songs and digital citizenship videos are authentically engaging and “sticky,” and the content is educationally nutritious.

Plus, the shared value assigned to such a proactive learning tool that can be used across the curriculum promotes connection and community, all of which ladder up to a positive school climate. Do make time to have meaningful conversations with your staff and students about digital citizenship; invite your school’s families to be part of the dialog as well so that everybody is bought into your school’s vision and educational philosophy. And do make sure to repeat the importance of digital citizenship for students throughout the year—not just at the start—so that it stays a priority in creating the ultimate school culture.

Want to learn more about bringing Flocabulary to your school or district?

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• Source: https://blog.flocabulary.com/positive-school-culture-digital-citizenship/