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Digital Community, Digital Citizen

By: Jason B. Ohler

Best-selling author and educator Jason Ohler addresses how today’s globally connected infosphere has broadened the definition of citizenship and its impact on educators, students, and parents.

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Product Details

Grade Level: K-12
ISBN: 9781412971447
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2010
Page Count: 256
Publication date: August 31, 2010

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Description

"From Plato to 'Leave it to Beaver,' Jason Ohler places our struggles with digital citizenship in the context of humanity's ongoing quest to develop good, productive, responsible citizens."
—Joe Brennan, Instructor, Discovery Education, Wilkes University, Arlington Heights, IL

"Jason Ohler excels at showing how digital connections affect almost every aspect of school life. This is an important read for anyone wanting to understand technology's impact on education."
—Will Richardson, Author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

An all-inclusive roadmap to citizenship in the 21st Century

Best-selling author, educator, and futurist Jason Ohler challenges all readers to redefine our roles as citizens in today's globally connected infosphere. In exploring the various aspects of digital citizenship, he aligns its pedagogy with the ISTE standards definition. The book uses an "ideal school board" device to address fears, opportunities, and the critical issues of character education. These issues include

Cyberbullying, "sexting," and other safety concerns
Students' ability to creatively access and critically assess information
Respect and ethics regarding copyrighted information
Communicating appropriately in an expanded and public realm

Rich with examples, professional development and classroom exercises, resources, and policy perspectives, this book will resonate with educators, parents, and anyone interested in the merging of education with technology and its impact on our children.

Key features

1. Organized around and aligned to the common areas of interest about digital citizenship from the various standards groups, including ISTE and the 21^st Century Skills.

2. Addresses the four primary areas implicit in digital citizenship:

Perspectives about living, learning, working and playing in the digital age; about living, learning, working and playing in the digital age
Literacies, including visual, media, and spatial literacy. , including visual, media, and spatial literacies
Issues such as safety, ethics, lifelong learning, personal learning networks, such as safety, ethics, lifelong learning, personal learning networks
Engagement in shaping the world in ways that reflect what we want as a community, both locally and globally in shaping the world in ways that reflect what we want as a community, both locally and globally.

3. Provides practical, standards-based ways to incorporate the issues of digital citizenship into the reality of classroom instruction;

4. Draws upon the work of a number of thinkers and writers, from Cuban, McLuhan and Neil Postman, to more current writers, like Tapscott, Friedman, Richardson, Shirky, Lessig and others.

Author(s)

Jason B. Ohler

Learn more about Jason Ohler's PD offerings

Jason Ohler is a speaker, writer, teacher, researcher, and lifelong digital humanist who is well known for the passion, insight, and humor he brings to his presentations and writings. He is author of numerous articles, books, and teacher resources and continues to work directly with teachers, administrators, and students. Combining twenty-five years of experience in the educational technology field with an eye for the future, Ohler connects with people where they are, and helps them see their importance in the future development of living, learning, and working in the Digital Age. Although he is called a futurist, he considers himself a nowist, working nationally and internationally to help educators and the public use today's tools to create living environments that we are proud to call home.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction - Remembering My High School Library

Preamble: Our Choice for Our Children: Two Lives or One?

Part I. The Call to Digital Citizenship

1. Becoming Digital: The Road to Digital Citizenship

A Short History of Educational Technology

A Short History of ISTE Standards

2. Perspectives on Citizenship and Community

Listening to the Ancient Human

An Extremely Short History of Citizenship

The Evolutuion of Community: From Farmland to Facebook

Three Levels of Community in ISTE Standards

You: Where Local, Global, and Digital Communities Intersect

3. Gathering Digitally

Changing Minds: The Altered Self

Perspectives on Organizational Communication in Digital Community

Edward T. Hall and the Proxemics of Virtual Space

Guidlines for Virtual Behavior

Guidelines for Creative Online Learning Communities

Some Closing Notes on Reorganizing Ourselves

Part II. Seeing Technology

4. What Bothers Us About Technology

Fear Is the Mind Killer

Facing Our Fears

Ubiquity

Invasiveness

Vulnerability

Amplification

Reducation

Misreality

Ephemeralness

Permanence

Indisconnectability

Overwhelment

Resocialization

Sovereignty

Dehumanization

Obsolescence

5. Seeing Technology: A Primer

Noticing Technology

Seeing Exercises

Seeing by Getting Philosophical

What's Your Technology Mantra?

What's Your School's Philosophy?

6. Becoming a "De-Tech-Tive": Helping Students Understand Technology's Impacts

A Matter of Balance

Becoming De-Tech-Tives

Technology Connects and Disconnects

Essential Questions of the De-Tec-Tive Process

The De-Tech-Tive Process

A Case Study of Conditional Acceptance: The Case of Digitally Retouching Photos

Issues Are Everywhere

A Favorite Project: The Energy Self-Study

Using Stories

McLuhan's Tetrad

Part III. Character Education in the Digital Age

7. Imagining the Ideal School Board

Party-Cipation: Setting the Stage

What Concerns Us: The Extreme Edge of Freedom

From Issues to Programs

Lessons From the Past

The Ideal School Board

Background Materials for Creating an Agenda

The Ideal School Board's First Agenda

8. Agenda Item 1: Helping Teachers Understand Their Own Ethical Framework

What Is Your Ethical Core?

Consider an Infosphere Issue

Stirring the Muddy Waters

An Ethical Framework: Categorical vs. Consequentialist

Discussing Ethical Issues With Students

9. Agenda Item 2: A Crash Course About Kids

Agenda Item 2, Topic A: What’s Different About Digital Community

Agenda Item 2, Topic B: Moral Development in Kids

Agenda Item 2, Topic C: Brain Development, Kids, and Moral Thinking

The Future of Neuro-Morality Research

Helping Students Develop Character

10. Agenda Item 3: Character Education for the Digital Age

Connecting Digital Citizenship And Character Education

The Essence Of Character Education

A Short History Of Character Education

Character Education Begins With Values

Character Education Standards and Evaluation

11. Agenda Item 4: Literacy in the Digital Age

Shift From Text-Centrism To Media Collage

Value Writing, Now More Than Ever

Adopt Art as the Next R

Blend Traditional And Emerging Literacies: Practice the DAOW

Harness Both Report and Story

Practice Private and Participatory Social Literacy

Develop Literacy Not Just With Digital Tools, but Also About Digital Tools

Pursue Fluency Rather Than Just Literacy

12. Agenda Item 5: What Role for IT?

Retuning Your IT Department

Taking the Next Step

ISTE Standards for IT Personnel?

Epilogue: Advice? Of Course!

References

Index

Reviews

“From Plato to 'Leave it to Beaver,' Jason Ohler sets our current struggles with digital citizenship in the context of humanity's ongoing quest for developing good, productive, responsible citizens."

Joe Brennan, Instructor, Discovery Education
Wilkes University, Arlington Heights, IL

“Jason Ohler excels at showing how digital connections are affecting almost every aspect of school life. This is an important read for anyone wanting to understand technology’s impact on education.”

Will Richardson, Author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

“This dynamite book will be very helpful for educators who face the challenge of rapid accommodation in this new world.”

Nancy Willard, Executive Director
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use

“Jason Ohler explores the tensions that evolve as technology shakes the foundations of our moral, social, political, and philosophical perspectives. A great read.”

Scott Christian, Director of Academic Technology
University of Portland, Oregon

"With balance and great insight, Ohler explores how Digital Citizenship is a part of our day-to-day lives: providing concrete examples, anecdotes and activities in support of the readers’ understanding of how this impacts their lives."

John Mikton, Director of Information Technology
International School of Prague, Czech Republic

"This book provides an in-depth analysis of how the internet and technology affect the very nature of learning, relationships, and schooling. This is a book that every teacher and school administrator should read to understand the full impact and significance of technology in education."

Greg Kearsley, Director of Graduate Studies in Education
University of New England, Biddeford and Portland, Maine

"Digital citizenship is an important area of study. This text helps educators at all levels to understand not only the history, but also the future of technology and our society, and technology and our schools."

Jill Gildea, Superintendent
Fremont School District 79, Mundelein, IL

"This book is a 'must read' for anyone who educates children and youth in the 21^st century. The digital aspects of global citizenship are clearly set forth with numerous thought-provoking examples and questions."

Karen L. Tichy, Associate Superintendent for Instruction and Special Education
Archdiocese of Saint Louis, Catholic Education Office

"The author articulates in layman's terms the importance of reflecting on our digital age and how we must integrate technology into our classrooms and school activities."

Lori L. Grossman, Manager, Academic Training
Houston Independent School District

"The author provides a compelling and refreshing look at the role of technology in education and in the lives of our students."

Richard Yee, Principal
Suisun Elementary School, CA

"The rationale for the importance of developing critical thinkers with a conscience for the rights of others was evident throughout the text. This book could easily become a field guide for administrators, school boards, and technology educators."

Roxie R. Ahlbrecht, Second Grade Math Teacher Leader
Robert Frost Elementary, Sioux Falls Public Schools 49-5, SD

"This timely and highly relevant title examines the impact technology has in the life of educators and their students. The book includes practical examples infused with infectious wit, helps educators appreciate the impact of technology in the world and the classroom."

Jamie Campbell
Library Media Connection magazine, March/April 2011 (Vol. 29, No. 5)

Other Titles in: Leadership | Classroom Applications of Technology | Leadership in Educational Technology

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