What is Digital Citizenship?

Anyangwe, E. (2012). 20 ways of thinking about digital literacy in higher education. Guardian Professional. Accessed 14th August 2014. Retrieved from URL: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/may/15/digital-literacy-in-universities


Reflect on the stimulus comments. Reflect on the blog post and consider the following questions:

1. What were the key thoughts and suggestions that had most meaning for you?

• Establish guiding ethical principles:

  I think this is really important, there is a lot of bullying and harressment on social media. I feel like a lot of people take the 'harden up' principal however if some people said the comments they make online to a person face to face they could actually get arrested for sexual harressment or something similar. I am constantly astonished and the level of abuse and violence directed towards people online.  

  Students and staff alike need to develop reflective and reflexive skills in order to asks themselves: is this something I would say to a person if they were standing right in front of me? What kind of outcome do I want from posting this kind of comment?  

  In addition to establishing guiding ethical principals knowing our personal online boundaries is important. Students need to think about what personal information they allow online and the future repercussions, such as applying for jobs.

• Mid-career is the worst time for academics and professional staff to be up to date with technology.

  Having time to experiment and having opportunities for 'peer supported experimentation' are of relevance to me. As a new staff member I am finding lesson planning very time consuming as I am becoming familiar with course content and searching for up-to-date information. This leaves me little time to experiment. There is also little opportunity for 'peer supported experimentation, however sharing an office with other staff members can spontaneously allow for this. Recently, a staff member asked me a question about 'Moodle Books' and I said, 'I don't know what a Moodle Book is?' This lead to us having a conversation about Moodle Books, which lead me to explore this function in Moodle. I will now use an upcoming lesson as a platform for creating my first Moodle Book. 

• 'Digital natives' need a basic understanding of computers as technical platforms, or of coding.

  I like the analogy (or is it a metaphor?) that Anyangwe (2012) makes regarding 'digital natives': "I worry that our computers are becoming like our cars: we are increasingly dependent on them but when we open the hood and don't know what to do." It is just so true! I hear people (ie my girlfriend and my brother) talk about coding this and coding that, and I have a vague idea about what coding is but no knowledge about how it works. Much like I hear people talk about radiators and spark plugs. I know they are important, but what do they actually do? Having a more in depth idea about coding and even being able to write some code will give me a much more holistic understanding of the univerise that is the internet.

• Digital literacy as an important part of transliteracy.

  The concept of transliteracy is refreshing and makes the idea of digital literacy a little less daunting, because it is simply one of many forms of literacy. I am quite literate in number of different areas and there is no reason why I cannot be digital literate. I wonder what kinds of skills transfer across forms of literacy?
• Digital engagement shouldn't be lead by a platform or task-specific agenda.

  When I read this section I immediately thought my use of facebook. I used to read posts that I thought were inappropriate or demeaning in some way. I used to feel angry and often express my concern, which would lead to an online argument with many other people getting involved (often totaly strangers). I thought about why I use facebook and I realised it was a bit of escapism, reading a few interesting articles, looking at some funny images and staying touch with friends. I actually didn't want to spend my down time arguing with people and having that argument to so public. I made the decision to immediately hide any posts I didn't like and move on.  

  I have agency as a user and have the right use this agency. However, there were posts from a page that I thought were abusive and dangerous for those their posts were directed at. So I used my agency to complain in this instance rather than simply hide the posts.

2. What do you consider to be the issues in your work area relating to digital literacy and citizenship ?
Two key issues I view in work area are; how to make courses accessible online as well as in a traditional classroom, face to face style and considerations for allowing my course content and research to be an open access resource.


3. How comfortable and familiar are you with accessing and using digital tools and media?

Depends really, I believe I'm quite good at researching information and using online data bases, such as exploring a range of different key words and filtering information so that I can effeciently find the types of articles I am after. But social media for isntance isn't really something I engage with much, I use facebook and that is about it. If find twitter boring and instagram seems to be a platform to post selfies - there is only so many funny faces I can pull, I mean I'm no Jim Carey! I would love to blog more, and have tried in the past. I tend to keep it up for a while, but I feel like I spend so much experiencing life I have little time to write about. I need my 7 hours of sleep per night!

When I was completing my Masters in Dance Studies, it was like a cruel joke. I was 'locked' away in a tiny dark office writing about dance and not having any time to actually dance. I'm a dancer and I want to dance, writing about dance is definitely not a close second. Although I see the benefit of recording my experiences with workshops, performances and choreographies, because I can go back and reflect on these experiences and use ideas in my present day practice. Is there a piece of technology that can be attached to my brain, and can record experiences as I experience them (there would have to be an off switch cause some experiences need to stay in the past!)?


 4. What are your students expectations around using digital tools and media?
Their expectation is to be able to access course material from Moodle and they know they need to produce some references when they write an essay or a report. I encourage them use a variety of sources including  the mass amounts of free academic data bases at the their fingers tips but generally they stick to websites. I know from experience that using databases can be frustrating and time consuming without the necessary skills. So I guess my question is how can I and/or the institution better support students to engage with academic databases?