ISTE Coaching Standard V

Model and promote strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools and resources while facilitating safe, healthy, legal, and ethical uses of digital information and technologies. At the end of the first quarter of the Masters program, we were asked to reflect upon our thoughts and beliefs regarding digital citizenship. Through this reflection, I developed three main guiding principles for promoting digital citizenship in my teaching and student learning.  

I set the first of the guiding principles with the scope of using technology best practices to provide open-source tools for students. Since setting this principle, I have attempted to include accessible software resources, both web-based platforms such as Google Suite, and free access to industry-specific software on campus whenever possible. I was also dedicated to provide more open-source texts for students yet it has proven very difficult as good open source nutrition textbooks are not currently available. I continue my resolve to use open-source texts, and am confident that more options will soon be made available.

For second guiding principle, I set to use the  dietetic code of ethics to promote safe, healthy, legal, ethical use of technology. The dietetic code of ethics extends into the digital world and aligns with digital citizenship principles.  As such, I have also been extending my knowledge of these ethics to all of the digital assessments in my classes. I present each of these assessments with the idea that students will have the opportunity to learn a soft skill that they can benefit from in the future and attach meaning to through the code of ethics.

The final guiding principle is to enhance student involvement through digital collaboration. In my teaching, I have made the biggest strives in meeting this goal and it has also provided me with the biggest learning impact. Virtually every class I teach involves collaboration via technology. I still feel very strongly that digital collaboration helps student improve communication skills, opens them up to new perspectives, and helps them practice the other two guiding principles mentioned above.

Model and promote diversity, cultural understanding, and global awareness by using digital age communication and collaboration tools to interact locally and globally with students, peers, parents, and the larger community. In order to promote digital age education, students must first learn how to communicate well with their professors so that they apply these skills to future professional communications. However, one of the major issues in digital citizenship, as addressed by the Digital Citizenship Assessment for ISTE coaching standard 4A), was how our students communicate with their professors in a very casual manner.  The faculty felt very strongly that they were not setting their students up for success. As a solution, I shared this post with the department and it was well received. This post, in part, help justify the departmental goal set in ISTE coaching standard 1C).