Digital Citizenship

Second Grade teacher Kathryn Mills started a Facebook book club to encourage students who were unable to attend school during Hurricane Harvey to post videos about the books they were reading. The Hurricane Harvey Book Club started with 70 members and has grown to more than 72,000 followers. It is a great example of how digital book reports can be done.

Paper may trump digital when preparing for exams, according to a report from the Paper and Packaging Board. Data shows that 70% of junior- and high-school students use handwritten class notes to prepare for tests, while 81% of college students still use paper notes to prepare. Not to be outdone, the National Pen Company has also put together an infographic that highlights the pros of putting pen to paper. Some of the benefits they mention include having better recall of the information jotted down, making you think about the concepts discussed more deeply, and helping you process the information presented.

Is your local school district trying to find ways to bridge the digital divide and give all students access to education technology, both at home and in the classroom? The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has developed a free Digital Equity Action Toolkit that is full of ideas for finding cost effective solutions in new technologies. It is a great resource for those looking to address the question of equity.

Thinking about sending your child’s teacher an after hours email? You might want to wait until the next school day. Some educators in Australia are asking for a break from the burden of answering emails sent by parents after hours and on weekends. The State School Teachers Union there says that some parents expect lengthy, instant responses, which is why they are seeking to include a provision that offers teachers a reprieve in their contracts.

Playing the video game Minecraft may help boost students' social and emotional skills, according to a recent survey from Getting Smart and Microsoft. Data shows that 86.6% of teachers who use the education version for group play in their classrooms said playing Minecraft had a positive effect on students' communication skills, including problem-solving (cited by 97.7 percent), creativity (95.5 percent), critical thinking (93.3 percent) and collaboration (91.1 percent).

Leaders in some school districts are placing limits on when -- and how often -- parents can check online grade portals, writes teacher and author Jessica Lahey. In a commentary in The New York Times, she shares the potential downside of parents "overchecking" grade portals, writing that in high-pressure school districts, parents will view the district’s invitation to constantly monitor grades and scores on the portal not as an option, but as an obligation. This obligation adds to the mounting anxiety students and parents feel in these districts.

Teaching coding to kids is a trend that is on the rise. A number of children’s books are using fictional storylines to teach the fundamentals of coding -  Girls Who Code is releasing two books, a fiction novel called "The Friendship Code," and an illustrated coding manual, and Gene Luen Yang’s best-selling graphic novel series “Secret Coders” follows a group of kids who discover that their school’s janitor has a secret underground coding school. There are also a number of organizations that have developed apps and online lessons to teach kids coding as well.  Code.org provides free online coding lessons, and has crafted coding curriculums for elementary, middle and high school students. Scratch Jr, a coding program designed for 4- to 7-year-olds, now has some five million users, and last year, Apple released a free app to teach the programming language Swift.

In one Arizona district, high schools have implemented a "traffic light" system to help with managing digital device use in the classrooms. Posters in individual classrooms display red, yellow or green signals indicating if students can, or cannot, use their digital devices during class. Students say it lets them know what to expect when coming into a class and gives them a break to concentrate on the tasks at hand. They also say it helps keep them from getting their phone confiscated.

Did you know that not all “hackers” are criminals? Many organizations are looking for white-hat hackers -- people who break down malicious code -- to help defend against cyberattacks, writes malware researcher Amanda Rousseau in a recent article in Teen Vogue. She offers four reasons why students, especially girls, should consider this career path, including the high demand for these jobs and the opportunity to positively affect the world and make a difference in people’s lives.