A Follow-Up Case Study - The Digital Citizenship Project
Earlier this year, we took a look at the Digital Citizenship Project, and how Jon Orech (@jorech) has used Campus Pack to connect students across the nation and prevent cyber bulling. Here are some additional details on how this project took shape:
High school sophomores serve as cyber mentors for middle school students on the topic of cyberbully protection & promotion of digital citizenship
When it Happened: The first deployment of the Digital Citizenship Project was the Spring of 2011. The project was repeated this past fall with new students, and will continue every semester.
Challenge Faced/Project Inspiration: Illinois state law requires Internet safety instruction for all students in grades 3-12, but was nebulus about the nature of the instruction. District 99 decided that a vertical embedded curriculum be developed. The main topics selected were Netiquette, Digital Citizenship, Cybercrime Prevention and Managing Digital Tattoo (Footprint). In addition to being embedded in existing classes, it was decided that all curriculum be project based with a focus on creating for an authentic audience.
How It Works: During a Personal Safety unit, sophomore health students research the causes and ramifications of cyberbullying and pose essential questions. Through “lit circles” students read and discuss cases taken from “Teen Cyberbullying Investigated” (Jacobs, 2011). Armed with this new knowledge, students post letters on Campus Pack blogs intended for middle school students with personal anecdotes and suggestions for cyberbully prevention and protection. Blogs are sent to participating middle school (MS) teachers and students. MS students read 2-4 posts and respond by commenting and asking further questions. Serving as “cyber mentors” sophomore students continue the conversation, displaying good Digital Citizenship to their “protegees.”
What Sets It Apart: This project matters for two reasons. First, students CREATE (instead of complete) for an authentic audience and purpose. In addition to cyberbully protection, students look in the mirror and ask “I’m behaving responsibly?” The HS mentors guide protegees, pose and answer questions, and engage in authentic discourse with those who genuinely want to know more. Second, both groups of students are assessed, not only on their knowledge of the topics, but also their practice of the behaviors.
Key Beneficiaries/Results:
The first benefit for the high school students was the amount of voluntary revision that was done. HS students wrote and revised more once they knew the audience was younger students.
Another benefit was the knowledge that was learned about the legal ramifications of cyberbullying. HS students scored significantly higher on an assessment measuring knowledge on legal consequences of Cyberbullying after participating in the project.
From the younger students’ perspective, there were also numerous benefits. MS teachers reported that students were impressed that HS students cared enough to write to them. As a result, they were more prone to continue the discussion in a safe, familiar environment, knowing they could trust their mentors. In at least one case, MS administrators are reporting a decrease in known incidents of cyberbullying after students participate in this project.
Surprises, "Ah Hah!" Moments, Next Steps, Advice:
While strong relationships were forged throughout the project, one interaction was truly remarkable. After reading the “mentor’s” post, one MS student confessed that he had bullied someone online. A second MS student berated the first for his actions. Taking the “high ground,” the HS student politely intervened and pointed out that the second student’s behavior was in effect bullying, and asked her to stop. The 2nd MS student apologized.
In the future District 99 plans to:
Develop longer cyber mentor relationships.
Have HS students include pics of self with post.
Skype with groups afterwards to place faces with names.
Develop a Campus Pack blog for teacher communication, resources, conversations.
Reasons for choices of technology: Campus Pack replaced Edmodo for this project. Minimal setup was required for students to write text, add images, and videos to help younger kids understand how to safely navigate the web. With one click, we made blogs accessible and sent links to middle school students nationwide who select and comment on our students' posts and continue the conversation. Assessment is efficient since teachers can read, comment, or collect all posts and comments by an individual student.
Did You Know ? - How to improve the look of your PLS
Do you have a Personal Learning Space (PLS) that is boring, stock, run-of-the-mill? Are the colors standard, bland and downright dull? Are you missing icons, photos or even better moving images ? Would you like to learn how to make your PLS shine?
Consider it a place to store all of your academic work as well as extracurricular activities and interests all in one place. You can share all or none of your PLS content with others at your institution or even people with no affiliation to your school. I like to think of it as part bulletin board, part filing cabinet when I can store all kinds of documents, videos, podcasts, photos etc. Some of these artifacts I choose to put up for display (bulletin board style) and adjust the permissions so everyone in the world can view it, and other items are private to me and to those people I've invited to view it via email. If you have been or will be sending invites for others to view your PLS, let's make sure they're seeing the very best of you! In just a few simple clicks you'll be amazed at how much better your space will look. Let's start making your PLS well, more personal.
1. Open your PLS by clicking on your name and selecting Home from the drop-down list. In some applications you can simply click on the tab labeled PLS at the top of your screen.
2. You are now inside your PLS. Navigate to the top right hand corner of the screen and click on your name. A drop-down list will appear. Click on Settings.
3. The Settings page will open and you will see the following screen. Under My Profile --> Profile Image select Change Image.
4. Click on Choose File.
5. Select your desired image from the list. In this example I chose a .gif file, which is an animated image. You can also upload a .jpg, .png etc. as all images are supported here.
6. Click Open. In the same window I have chosen to update the color theme of my PLS. To coordinate with my frog, I have chosen green and clicked Update.
Here is the final result. My icon changed from a lobster to a jumping green frog and the color theme is now green. Here is how the frog looks on my PLS.
Let us nominate you for the Campus Technology Innovators Award!
Campus Technology Innovators is seeking applications from institutions using technology on their campus in new and innovative ways for their annual Campus Technology Innovators Award. We know that you, our clients, are using Campus Pack in ways that will catch the eye of their decision makers, and we want to nominate you!
They are looking for innovative ideas in areas including teaching and learning, student systems and services, administrative systems, leadership, governance and policy, IT infrastructure systems, and education futurists. Click here for more information on those categories, and on what the winners will receive.
Please contact web2.0@learningobjects.com and share with us an exciting and innovative way in which your institution is using Campus Pack! The deadline is February 15, 2012, so send us your entries soon!
In the meantime, sign up for our free trainings this week that will showcase 5 use cases from Campus Pack schools and how you can recreate them. Click below to sign up.
Tueday, Feb 7, 10:00 AM EST
Wednesday, Feb 8, 4:00 PM EST
Tuesday, Feb 14, 11:00 AM EST
Wednesday, Feb 15, 5:00 PM EST
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| Congratulations to Chris Lambert from Translyvania County Schools in North Carolina! He won the drawing for our free kindle at FETC.
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Free Campus Pack Training Scheduled
Start your semester off with new ideas! Get a free refresher on the tools available in Campus Pack 4, and how you can use them in your courses!
Join one of our one-hour free training webinars!
Click the date to sign up for a live training. Please note all webinars are listed in Eastern Standard Time.
Tueday, Feb 7, 10:00 AM EST
Can't make any of the dates above? We will post the recordings on the community site, and plan to schedule more over the next several weeks.
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Understanding Personal Learning Spaces
Check out our short 3 minute video on our personal learning spaces work in Campus Pack 4!
Managed Upgrade - Feedback from Babson College
If you haven't upgraded to Campus Pack 4 yet, Learning Objects is offering a new service to help make your upgrade experience easy. This process entails a dedicated Learning Objects engineer moving all of your Campus Pack 3 content en masse to Campus Pack 4, followed by a monitoring and supervision window to ensure that all content has successfully been upgraded and resolve any unforeseen issues within the new environment.
Over their recent semester break, our team successfully executed a quick and painless managed upgrade to Campus Pack 4 for client Babson College. Babson College has been a long time client, and has published two case studies based on their usage of Campus Pack. 
Tova Duby, Senior Manager of Blended Learning Implementation in the Curriculum Innovation and Technology Group at Babson was able to relax and enjoy time off while her dedicated engineer upgraded their social learning content to our latest version. She shares that "Everything's great! Any issues encountered were understood and quickly addressed. This upgrade was easy and painless for us."
Stay tuned for more feedback from Babson soon about their experience and how their hybrid and traditional programs are taking advantage of the new capabilities now at their fingertips. If you are interested in learning more about Managed Upgrade, please contact your account manager at am@learningobjects.com.
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Are you heading to FETC 2012? We'll see you there!
If you haven't registered yet, you can use the Learning Objects VIP code FREE116 during the registration process, and receive free expo only passes or $30 off your full conference pass, courtesy of Learning Objects. |
Emilie Udell updated "A Follow-Up Case Study - The Digital Citizenship Project." 1 day agoEmilie Udell updated "A Follow-Up Case Study - The Digital Citizenship Project." 1 day agoEmilie Udell added the entry "A Follow-Up Case Study - The Digital Citizenship Project." 1 day ago
Margaret Whiting updated "Did You Know ? - How to improve the look of your PLS." 1 week ago, 2/13/2012
Emilie Sullivan updated "Did You Know ? - How to improve the look of your PLS." 1 week ago, 2/13/2012