Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

School Responsibility

By: Jason Malewski

Education of Digital Communication

With the growing use of digital communication, especially within schools, what are the boundaries of the school's responsibility?

Topic Overview

Should Schools be Required To Teach Digital Communication Standards and Practices?

Recognize the Issue

This could be potentially important to the growth and development of our next generation.

People Affected

People Affected

Children in the education system are subjected to expectations requiring them to be able to interact with digital media and communicate digitally.

The teachers are also affected because they are the ones imposing the expectations. They are also expected to be able to read and interpret communications.

Nature

Nature

What type of issue is this?(legal, efficiency, etc.)

This issue is more important than the law or the method's efficiency. This issue is inherently one regarding the students potential. If students are not fluent in the methods of communication they are expected to use they could have limits placed upon their potential.

Facts

We must consider the facts known and not surrounding the issue.

Get the Facts

UDHR

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 26:

The article states that it is a natural human right to receive education. The education received shall also be directed to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

This means that if the we must consider if communication is considered a fundamental freedom. If so, students must be educated upon all facets of digital communication to build a respect for it.

Research

Research

Schools usually require research as part of the curriculum. If digital research is accepted or encouraged, it becomes an issue as to whether or not the students are currently equipped with the necessary skills to navigate the digital landscape.

This is important for students to determine what areas are safe, as well as what areas are the best for research.

Relationships

Relationships

The digital landscape is one with a lot of pitfalls. One of these is how to talk to different audiences to cultivate different types of relationships.

Students must learn from somewhere how to talk to different people. If they indeed partake in communicating digitally with teachers it could prove detrimental if they do not learn correctly.

Safety

Safety

Kids must be able to talk with people who can help them, these people can be professors whose paper they are using for their presentation, or just people who take a survey for their class. To do this students must be able to effectively and safely determine what methods to use when communicating, and what types of information is okay to dole out.

Stakes

Stakes

The groups that have the most at stake with this issue are children and teachers.

Children have their futures at stake, their depth of knowledge regarding digital communication could determine their potential as this is the most popular form of communication, not in person.

Teachers also have a lot at stake. If they expect their students to use this and some of them have never learned, their student's bad grades could reflect poorly on them and lead to lower standards.

Options

Options

There are really only two options to address the problem:

  • Digital communication can be addressed in the curriculum
  • Digital communication can be disregarded all together

Evaluate Alternative Solutions

Using the different approaches to evaluate the options

Evaluate Other

Alternatives

Utilitarian

The Utilitarian Approach

Which option will produce the most good and least harm?

1. Teaching:

This will produce good for the students. Every student will have the opportunity to learn about digital communication. It would produce slight harm for the teachers as it would learning time for other topics out of the curriculum.

2. Not Teaching:

This could produce harm for the students that did not have the opportunity to learn about digital communication out of the classroom. This is slightly good for the teachers, as they do not have to dedicate time for this new topic.

Rights

The Rights Approach

Which option best respects the rights of those involved?

1. Teaching:

This respects the rights of the students, particularly Article 26 of the UDHR, where teaching the students about digital communication would fulfill Article 26 by teaching the to respect fundamental freedoms.

2. Not Teaching:

This directly opposes Article 26, as it does not respect the students right to education that teaches about fundamental freedoms, unless communication is not considered a fundamental freedom.

Justice

The Justice Approach

Which option treats everyone equally?

1. Teaching:

This will treat all students as equals, because they are all taught the same things regarding digital communication. This allows all students to be graded fairly on projects involving interaction with the digital landscape.

2. Not Teaching:

This could lead to students being graded poorly for having poor skills in an area that they were never taught. This would not be an example of students being treated equally.

Common Good

The Common Good Approach

Which option will produce the most good for the community?

1. Teaching:

This will produce good for the students. Students themselves outnumber teachers, making this good for more people, but not only that, the students make up the next generation and thus will teach the next generation's students. If there is a strong foundation of what is being taught and why, they will teach the next generation as such.

2. Not Teaching:

This is only slightly good for the teachers which are far and away outnumbered by students, making up a small portion of the community.

Virtue

The Virtue Approach

Which option would allow me to act as I would want to act?

1. Teaching:

This would allow everyone to make educated decisions regarding the digital landscape. I want to make educated decisions, so I would want to be taught.

2. Not Teaching:

This could lead to uneducated decisions being made by students. That is not how I want to make desicions, regardless of the topic, and not how I would want to act.

Making the Decision

Make a decision

After using all of the evaluations, the clear conclusion is that the best decision is to have schools take the responsibility to teach students about the facets of digital communications.

Testing

Testing the decision

I am not going to lie, I do not currently believe that I am a psychic, but if I offered my answer to a studio audience I believe that they would cheer. They would believe that I had made the right decision, considering almost every method pointed this direction.

Act and Reflect

Act/reflect on the outcome

The best way to implement this would be to ask teachers to take a small amount of time out of the curriculum each grade, from 1-5, to help educate students. The lengthy exposure would help cultivate a depth of knowledge within the students.

I do not know how this would turn out in practice, but I believe that students who possess the knowledge surrounding digital communication would be able to more easily fulfill their potential.

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi