DFI #7 At Home In A Digital World

 DFI#7 At Home In A Digital World

We were challenged by using different devices this week. While I feel quite at home on an iPad, I have never even opened a Chromebook - even though there are literally hundreds of them in my school. Rāwhiti students are so adept at using Chromebooks but I certainly had some learning to do. Finding the shortcuts on the Chromebook was a challenge and good learning for me, but I found the whole device to be ‘clunky’.

Digital Fluency is about being able to use any device - it is really important that we understand the learning experience our learners are having so I am glad that I was able to experience this. However, I was very pleased to get back onto my Macbook to write my blog post.

I also really enjoyed experimenting today with Screen Castify and I could see where I could purposefully use this tool at school. I am currently working on a resource for parents to help them understand our new system of reporting student achievement and progress using Linc-Ed Hero. 

However, the biggest challenge today was actually taking part in the DFI. Not terribly far into the session I was unceremoniously kicked out of our Google Meet, with my screen displaying a rather intimidating message from Linewise saying that I had been banned from using Meet! Being remedial in my abilities the thought of missing the mornings content caused quite some stress. 

And so, the problem solving began. 

A quick check with my DFI colleagues revealed that two of us were in and two of us were out. To determine whether it was linked to school or home, I changed from my school email to my personal Gmail account and discovered that I could get back into Meet - although nobody would know who was trying to access the meetings. With the help of someone on-site back at school, we were able to determine that 'someone' had been playing around in the school settings because they wanted to deny children access to something as a consequence of doing the wrong thing with their device. Because my account is linked to that particular Learning Studio, when they changed the setting I was directly affected. 

Problem solved and access restored.

However, the whole incident cuts right to the heart of today's DFI theme of being Cybersmart. If the goal is to have young people who can harness technology in smart and clever ways and to engage in online behaviour and thinking that elevates positive actions, then I can not see a place for blanket banning of online access. As Dorothy pointed out, teachers don't take maths books off children because they don't do their maths properly. 

My observation is that teachers tend to remove or deny access to things that they think children will like - such as PE and outdoor games, and digital devices. This is a practice that can't be condoned.

There are a myriad of excellent Cybersmart resources available to us on the Manaiakalani site to help us "prepare and empower our learners to manage in an online world". Let's not take kids - or principals - offline to try and make a point.