Are there better ways of addressing dangers/threats that the online environment poses?

The topic this week is danger! Can digital storytelling as a preferred approach best address the dangers and threats of an online environment? So what are these threats?

Given that our theme links digital storytelling back to digital literacy – maybe the question also needs to address personal skills - is developing the wherewithal to navigate online dangers an aspect of digital literacy?

Cyber-bullying and online predators are acknowledged risks of being active in an online world, but is digital storytelling necessarily the best way to address these issues? Here are some thoughts on...

Digital literacy and online citizenship
In the article Curriculum teaches digital literacy and citizenship ), on his internet safety blog, Larry Magid talks about a not-for-profit organisation in San Francisco who has developed curriculum with a focus on digital citizenship. The curriculum is based on similar work being done by Howard Gardner's Good Play (http://www.goodworkproject.org/research/digital.htm)project which has a focus on behaviour and ethics online for young people. Magid states that the difference in these programs is the acceptance of the young people that the program is designed to protect as participants and creators (rather than just as consumers). The curriculum he is reviewing (by U.S.-based Common Sense Media) covers the following areas:


“Digital life: "How the anytime-anywhere-everywhere nature of digital media requires responsible choices."
Privacy and digital footprints: How to manage privacy online.
Connected culture: How to build respectful one-on-one, group, and community relationships online and protect against cyber bullying.
Self-expression and reputation: Who we are in various online contexts and how to protect your reputation in the process.
Respecting creative work: How to get credit for original creations and respect others' creative property.” (Common Sense Media, 2010)

In examples from the Common Sense Media Privacy and digital footprints curriculum many exercises and activities focus on videos as jumping-off points, off-line games and old-fashioned collaborative discussion. Learning about digital literacy issues, can benefit from the being taught independently from digital tools, allowing space to deconstruct meanings and encourage objectivity.

Other dangers?
If we take a wider view the 'dangers and threats' in the online world – one lightweight technological determinist reading may be about the misuse of the tools themselves.

In the article Using Technology to Enhance Literacy Instruction Ann Holum and Jan Gahala put forward an overview of the arguments for and against integrating technology (including digital storytelling) into the K-12 curriculum. In the overview, they summarise two of the key issues as:

“The “Moving Target” problem” which they attribute to the work of Valdez 1999 (Holum & Gahala, 2001). Essentially this is the idea research on technology is failing to keep up with the changing pace of technology and classroom practice arising from this research can be quickly obsolete.

And the “Scarcity of Comprehensive Literacy Studies. Not only does technology change faster than guidelines for innovations can be established, but relatively few thorough studies have evaluated the efficacy of new technologies for literacy education.” (Holum & Gahala, 2001).

Jo has acknowledged a similar thought in her last post - that using the area of digital storytelling for great cognition needs “further exploration”. The danger in the approach of a digital storytelling focus may be putting all your literacy eggs in one unproven basket.

A couple of final thoughts
Digital storytelling is a part of the approach to a digital literacy curriculum – not the solution itself:
“Consider technology tools as an extension of—not a substitute for—traditional literacy instruction in the classroom.” (Holum & Gahala, 2001).

Be vigilant, the dangers of cyber bullying, safety, digital footprints etc are not necessarily addressed more successfully through the medium that sustains them:

Holum & Gahala quote Healy (1998, p.141),"We must make sure that computer use includes the important step of requiring children to 'elaborate' their knowledge—thinking aloud, questioning, communicating ideas, or creating some kind of original representation about what they are learning"

References

Common Sense Media, Digital Citizenship Curriculum, retrieved on 17 March 2010 from http://www.commonsensemedia.org/how-be-common-sense-school2

Gardner, H, Good Play Project, retrieved on 10 May, 2010 from http://www.goodworkproject.org/research/digital.htm

Holum, J & Gahala, J, Using Technology to Enhance Literacy Instruction, Critical Issue, 2001, Retrieved on 17 May 2010 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/reading/li300.htm

Magid, L, Curriculum teaches digital literacy and citizenship, Safe and Secure blog, 10 April, 2010 retrieved on 14 May 2010 from http://ow.ly/1x2r2