{"id":1,"date":"2018-05-02T00:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royalroads.yourdevsite.ca\/malat-student-preproduction\/student2\/?p=1"},"modified":"2018-06-09T09:36:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-09T16:36:57","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"How to embrace your educator identity in a digital world"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently participated in a week-long symposium<\/a> with presentations about mindful social media engagement, open education, and innovations in areas of global educational learning, to name a few. I was most interested in the connection between educator identity and the open learning concept, in particular when teaching in a digital learning community. During one of the presentations about mindful social media engagement I was stopped in my tracks because we were asked to be the “experts” when engaging students in social media work. I am an early childhood educator by profession and I see my role as an educator more as a collaborator, co-learner and facilitator, rather than \u201cthe expert\u201d. I have maintained that role in my work with adult learners and have always felt comfortable in it. My role as educator was put into question and exposed me to the possible adoption of a role I had happily left behind many years prior. This was an inner debate I had not been prepared to engage in as I thought I had figured out my role as educator decades ago. I thought I was progressive in my approach in educating students!<\/p>\n

\"\"Pixabay Creative Commons<\/span><\/p>\n

To be asked to be the expert in a rapidly changing field of social media and technology use was overwhelming to say the least. The responsibility that came with the notion of expertise felt challenging. However I could not ignore the question of whose responsibility it is to inform students about the best media choices and the best technology tools in order to navigate the minefield of today\u2019s digital world in relative safety. In my search for answers I came across a framework of digital citizenship by Xu, Yang, MacLeod & Zhu<\/a> (2018). The framework, inspired by Ribble & Miller (2013)<\/a> identifies how to respect, educate and protect oneself and others when working in a digital environment, which in Ribble & Miller\u2019s opinion, is squarely placed back on the individuals themselves. I was happy to discover the International Society for Technology in Education<\/a> (ITSE) had developed standards, based on Ribble\u2019s theory, for both teachers<\/a> and students.<\/a><\/p>\n

The ITSE (2018) standards for students include:<\/p>\n

Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my search to further clarify my own responsibilities as an educator I found the work of Snyder<\/a> (2016) and here is what he had to say:<\/p>\n

Because of the unique issues born of technology, everyone must learn about digital citizenship so that each member of society can become aware of the dangers and pitfalls as well as the positive outcomes associated with taking on the role of digital citizen in a global community.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cormier<\/a> (2017) pushed me further along my path of clarification when he referred to the concept of \u2018open for<\/strong> learning\u2019 as \u2018a pedagogical necessity\u2019 which supports my own belief that in open learning communities we (teacher and students) engage in order to learn with and from each other. The tension around my role in education has subsided, for today, and I am back in my role as facilitator, collaborator and co-learner. I am also ready to embrace my role as a digital citizen. Are you?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

Cormier, D., (2017). \u00a0Learning and Technology Symposium 2017<\/a>. <\/em>Royal roads University, Victoria, BC<\/p>\n

International Society for Technology in Education<\/a> (2018)<\/p>\n

Royal Roads University, (2018). \u00a0Learning and Technology Symposium 2018 and 2017<\/a><\/em>. Victoria, BC<\/p>\n

Snyder, S., (2016). Educational Leadership in an Online World: Connecting Students to Technology Responsibly, Safely, and Ethically.<\/a><\/em> Walden University<\/p>\n

Xu, S., Yang, H., MacLeod, J., & Zhu, S. (2018). Social media competence and digital citizenship among college students.\u00a0Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies<\/em><\/a>,1<\/em>(1), 135485651775139-135485651775139. doi:10.1177\/1354856517751390<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently participated in a week-long symposium with presentations about mindful social media engagement, open education, and innovations in areas of global educational learning, to name a few. I was most interested in the connection between educator identity and the open learning concept, in particular when teaching in a digital learning community. During one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}