"The rate of change in the world is accelerating with the rapid advances in technology. We need to ensure our students are learning new literacies, so they can engage effectively in a world very different from when their parents and teachers went to school. This engagement encourages you to think about teaching your students digital citizenship" (IBO.org). We can use the IB Learner Profile as a guide to teaching digital citizenship to our students. Each of the Profile characteristics can in some way be connected to digital citizenship. Inquiry as a digital citizen would have to do with active participation, sharing your knowledge with others, and interacting appropriately in an online community. Communication would involve areas such as effective and willing collaboration, being courteous with postings, and insuring proper grammar is used. Principled digital citizens would show strong ethics, respect privacy and copyright laws. Open-minded PYP Digital Learners wou...
As an ESOL elementary teacher, I see students for 60-90 minutes each day. The remainder of these students' school day is spent with the homeroom teacher, or other special area teachers. I chose to use Twitter as a way to connect with the other teachers at my school who also work with the ESOL students I teach. Most of these teachers were already on Twitter, so it was just a matter of getting those that were not already following me, and whom I was not yet following, to connect. We can now easily share classroom moments and activities, helping to insure we are all integrating the common themes and concepts for whatever the current IB unit of inquiry might be. Our Twitter connection goes beyond what could be conveyed in an email, which has been our primary means of communicating and sharing ideas and information. In addition, other teachers and administrators within our school and district can "see" many of the things happening in our classrooms. This type of sharing is eve...
