An educator must create opportunities for students to work online in a responsible manner. Being responsible means that a student uses a discernible eye when choosing resources for school work.  They must be knowledgeable on how to protect their identity and privacy.  Finally, a digital citizen must empathetically contribute contents and thoughts that positively influence communities of learners.  Students are not automatically skilled in these things and it is important for an educator to model these responsibilities and create opportunities to practice digital citizenship.

Course Work and Classroom Projects

OER Commons and Merlot

Schools are relying less and less on text book guided curricular options and more on digital resources that align to Common Core Standards and the NGSS.  There needs to places teachers can search for reliable information to guide them in their unit planning.  Two such places are the OER commons (Open Educational Resources) and Merlot.  I have created free accounts for both of these databases and have used them on several occasions.  These resources also allow for teacher feedback and correspondence. Below are my reviews of each of these resources.

OER commons

Merlot

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​Newslea

​Newslea helps educators meet digital citizenship learning goals because it puts students inside of a reading application in which articles are vetted and selected for different subject areas and reading levels.  Students can examine online resources to make meaning of current events in science.  This tool also provides students with reading and writing prompts that aid them with critical reading skills.  I created a Newslea for my science class and put the directions on my Canvas page.  By joining my class on Newslea their identities are protected and I can therefore see and respond to their answers and critiques.  Below I invite you to see my Newslea lesson as well as my blog post reflection.

Blog Post

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Responsible Online Research with WebQuest

The following is a blog post I created in the Spring of 2017.  This artifact represents the Citizen standard because it establishes curiosity of digital resources in a safe environment.  
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Mobile Learning
using iPads- Web
Quest using Zunal  
April 26, 2016
Our school continues to move forward with deploying the use of more and more iPads.  It is the districts goal to eventually have one iPad for every student.  Currently, I infrequently use iPads because they are issued to the math department. However, this coming fall I will have use of an Apple TV, a team iPad cart and a Mac Book!  I am excited to use these Apple Products together to create web based lessons.
There is less time wasted with iPads because students don’t have to wait for their settings to load.
I created a web quest using Zunal.com. Teachers can create one free web quest by creating a user profile and an email address. The interface is very user friendly.  Teachers have 7 pages to create within one web quest: A Welcome, Introduction, Task, Process, Evaluation, Conclusion, and Teacher Page.  I spent the most time creating a “task” page that would guide students through the information I wanted them to collect online.  I might add that it was very simple to add media or groups of links to the pages.  Just like WordPress, uploading a video was as easy as pasting in a YouTube link.
I created a web quest for my upcoming engineering project.  Students in my class have been studying how energy transfers from particle to particle through collisions.  This is called conduction.
This web quest will require students to research how Native Americans and Frontiersman survived cold winters on the plains in homes they built with natural materials.
After the web quest, students will be asked to build homes for an ice cube that will insulate the ice cube and reduce energy transfer.  They will be required to used 75% reusable materials or natural materials in their structure.  They will compete for the longest period of time their ice cube remains solid.
This is a link in which to read my web quest.
http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=320351


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