Using Google Suite to Foster Digital Citizenship

Our entire school this year adopted Google Apps for Education (now known as Google Suite, but I'm still struggling with that new title).  This adoption was not without its struggles and concerns, from how to access and share documents to how to deal with a classroom of students who suddenly have a "chat" feature built into their word processing software.  There were many considerations we had to take into account, some of them involving legal and ethical concerns.

To begin, as a former English teacher and media specialist (librarian for those of you who are still "old school"), I spent years teaching students how to cite their sources, and that task has grown exponentially as students can so easily right-click on any image or CTRL+C on a piece of text and call it their own.  It is vital that we spend time talking to students about intellectual property and how to use the information they find online legally and ethically.  I teach them about Creative Commons and fair use, and we talk about how much they would hate to have someone steal their creative works and claim them as their own.  Fortunately, Google docs does a wonderful job with its advanced search of allowing students to search only for items labeled for reuse.  It also reminds them to only use items which they are allowed to use.  

We click on the learn more link and spend time talking about what commercial reuse and modification mean.  Soon they learn how to properly insert images and how to cite those which they are able to use.

Beyond teaching them the basics about citing their sources (something we've been doing for years, just in different ways), we also have to address issues of collaboration.  One of the strong points of Google Suite is its ability for students to engage in real-time collaboration.  There is even a chat feature so that students can engage in discussion while working together if not in the same physical space (or separated across a classroom).  This chat feature, however, not only allows for typical teenager chat (much the way passing notes used to function when I was in high school), but it also allows those with more malicious intent a venue for harassment or bullying.  As teachers, we have to be on the watch for such behavior, and we have to teach students about the dangerous effects of bullying for both sides.  We discuss what bullying is and whether it is different online.  We talk about cyberbullying and how and why to report it when it happens.

Ultimately, there have been many lessons to learn this year as we make our transition into digital curriculum.  So many issues pop up each day that we did not or could not anticipate.  As teachers, we try to meet them head-on and to focus on the students and how to best prepare them for this new world in which they are living.