Social Responsibility and a Biblical Worldview

 As Christian's our first duty is to God and His word, everything else comes second. If we as Christian educators put God first in our lives, then our lives will be a reflection of Him. This includes how we interact with others, on and off line. Colossians 1:10 tells us, "So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God," (ESV, 2015). As Christian educators we have a responsibility to uphold God's word while teaching our students. As the gospel tells us, we are to teach others about the love of Christ, I take this to heart. Not only with how I interact with my students but also with their families. In regards to social responsibility, if our spirts reflect the attributes of Christ then this will carry over in how and what we teach our students. Being a reflection of Christ dictates our actions and this includes what we post online, how we interact with others online, and how we carry ourselves. We have a choice to what we post and share online with others. As one article pointed out nothing we share online is private, no matter how many privacy settings we have in place. As educators we need to remember this and how it reflects on our character. 

References: 

Carr-Chellman, A. A., Rowland, G. (2017). Issues in Technology, Learning, and Instructional Design:      Classic and Contemporary Dialogues. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing. ISBN: 9781317484295.

English Standard Version Bible, (2015). English Standard Study Bible

Fagell, Phyllis L. "Teachers and social media: A cautionary tale about the risks." Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 100, no. 2, Oct. 2018, p. 68. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A562866823/BIC?u=vic_liberty&sid=summon&xid=e9071403. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.

Floyd, J. (2023). A comparison of elementary teacher efficacy in christian and public schools. Journal of     Research on Christian Education, 32(1-2), 53-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2023.2245092

Security of Data in the Future

 When thinking about security data in the future and now, one of the most important things is that we must educate ourselves and our students about the importance of being secure internet users. How do we do this? First we must not overshare. The world we live in today, it is all about sharing and oversharing on various social media platforms about our lives. We must be conscious of what we are posting and make ourselves aware of different websites that we are visiting. The world we live in today, it seems that we have scammers all over the place, and if we are not aware and conscious of our online use, we can easily be taking advantage of. These are the types of things we need to educate our students about and make them aware of it. 

Resources: 

Kurniawan, Y., Natalia, B., Pratama, W., & Devi, Ni Luh Gede Aninda Kesuma. (2024). Social media data privacy related to security awareness and student trust regarding data on instagram. HighTech and Innovation Journal, 5(2), 431-446. https://doi.org/10.28991/HIJ-2024-05-02-015 

Digital Citizenship Assignement

 For this weeks blog post, we are to discuss what is digital citizenship. For those of you who are not familiar with the term digital citizenship, I think it is important to first define the term. In the article, "Digital rights, digital citizenship, and digital literacy: what's the difference," the authors define digital citizenship simply as, "the right to participate in society online," (Pangrazio and Sefton-Green, 2021, p.18). To take it one step further, anyone who is online has digital citizenship. However with that definition being so simple, it does not go into detail on how to be a productive, safe, and pertinent digital citizen. 

As an elementary special education teacher, it is so important that we teach our student safe guidelines when it comes to being a productive digital citizen. Being online is easily assessable to all our students in today's classrooms. With that comes responsibility. As educators are we teaching our students how to be a good digital citizen? "It is critical to support digital literacy and digital citizenship earlier, rather than correcting misunderstandings later, (Lauricella, 2020), it goes on to point out in the article how important it is to teach our young students digital character traits. I love this and think it is something we all as educators should be doing within our classrooms. Children today are given the freedom of the internet at earlier ages then we as adults were, however we as responsible adults must be there to help guide the younger generations. 

This is when it is important to be aware of and use powerful tools like ISTE. ISTE is a wealth of knowledge for educators and students in order to become better digital citizens. One os ISTE's standards for education leaders includes standard 3.5 the connected learner. Standard 3.5.d is navigate continuous improvement. I like this standard the best because it discusses how we as educators/education leaders are to, "promote a mindset of continuous improvement." This is so important as educators that we continually search for ways to improve our craft as educators and as technology advances, being up to date with new concepts, ideas and growth in order to better serve our students. 

Resources: 

Lauricella, A.R., Herdzina, J., & Robb. M. (2020). Early childhood educators' teaching of digital
    citizenship competencies. Computers and Education, 158, 103989. 
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103989 

ISTE website. 2024. International Society for Technology in Education.      https://iste.org/standards/education-leaders

Pangrazio, L., & Sefton-Green, J. (2021). Digital rights, digital citizenship and digital literacy: What's the 
    difference? Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 10(1), 15-27. 
    https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.616  

Digital Rights

 In this assignment we will take a look into digital rights. Let's first define what are digital rights. The article, "Digital rights, digital citizenship and digital literacy: what's the difference," defines digital rights as, "human and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create and publish digital content on devices such as computers and mobile phones, as well as in virtual spaces and communities," (Pangrazio and Sefton-Green, 2021, p.19). For many people this includes the freedom of speech and aligns with our 1st amendment rights as American citizens. With the ever growing world of technology, are our freedom of speech rights covered as a digital citizen? The answer is yes. However, are we using our platforms properly and in a way that is promoting a world of positive influence, or are we using our platforms to promote hate and alienation from others? In an article by Dror-Shpoliansky and Shany, they have found that the digital world is being used as a platform for bullying cyber hate speech. They go onto say that our digital rights must be protected and upheld in order to protect people with varying opinion to exists in a cohesive digital world. As Christian digital citizen our platform should be one that promotes Christ and His character qualities. I personally think this is difficult for many people, especially when they get into discussions with others about biblical topics that can be controversial. 

Resources: 

Dror-Shpoliansky, D., & Shany, Y. (2021). It’s the End of the (Offline) World as We Know It: From Human Rights to Digital Human Rights – A Proposed Typology. European Journal of International Law = Journal Européen de Droit International., 32(4), 1249–1282. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chab087 

Pangrazio, L., & Sefton-Green, J. (2021). Digital rights, digital citizenship and digital literacy: What's the difference? Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 10(1), 15-27.     
https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2021.1.616 

Educational Blogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPup31AXdE

Education Technology and the Digital Citizen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkzG5urDl9w

Media Fluency

 What is media fluency and our responsibility to teach media fluency? The world we live in is ever changing, and we are always connected to one another through social media. In our class video for this week, it discussed the importance of the media we post and how it is involves listening, leverage, and effective communication. When leverage is concerned we have to make sure our content is aligned with the message that we are trying to convey to our audience. In regards to effective communication our messages need to be clear, concise and geared toward our intended audience. In the article, "I'm not fluent," it discusses the importance of being able to decipher from a true source and disinformation when scrolling through our phones. "To combat disinformation social media uses need skills that will help them decipher fact from fiction regardless of the linguistic properties contained in a post," (Miller, Menard, and Bourrie p.61). With that we have to be ever aware of what we are posting and what we are reading. Proverbs 23:33 gives us an important reminder when it comes to what we read and post on the internet, "Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse thigs," (ESV Bible). 

Resources: 

Media Fluency Video. (2024). https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/698517/pages/watch-media-fluency?module_item_id=76489916T   

Miller, S., Menard, P., & Bourrie, D. (2024). I'm not fluent: How linguistic fluency, new media literacy, and personality traits influence fake news engagement behaviors on social media. Information &Management., 61(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2023.103912

The English Standard Study Bible. (2015)