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| Colloquium Program and
Agenda |
Colloquium Session Abstracts
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Paper
Title: The Golden Rule
Author:
Linda Bennett, University of Missouri
The golden
rule is that there are no golden rules.
George Bernard
Shaw
Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you is in a metamorphic state when
it comes to how citizenship education is practiced while using the
Internet. It seems there are no golden rules for the social interactions
on the Internet. The rights and responsibilities of the global citizenry
for postings, perusing, or retrieving information from the Internet has
not evolved into a mature stage of development. By exploring the social
interactions of diverse people around the world using the Internet in
similar or unique ways, we may discover norms and exceptions to acceptable
practices while using the Internet.
As users of
the Internet formally and informally interact, they need to practice
responsible and respectful behavior. Whether it is the metamessage of a
grandparent to a ten year old in an instant message or women in Asia
sharing ideas of the emerging rights of woman in their culture, the way we
exchange information is linked to the use of the Internet. Communication
tools such as instant messaging, blogs, and face books have transformed
the forums for connecting to others in the room and around the globe. A
high school senior in China, a fortune five hundred CEO in the U.S., and
retired couple backpacking in the mountains can have similar access to
information using the Internet so what are the rules for the global online
community. An exploration of the research on the practice of online global
citizenship is in order. Can the golden rule be applied to the rights and
responsibilities of individuals while using the Internet?
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Paper Title: “Woulda”,
“Shoulda”, “Coulda”, - Technology and
Citizenship
Education
The University
of Texas at San Antonio
Over the
past three decades technology has been “sold” as a transformative tool that
would change the way we educate our citizenry. In particular, the promise
of access to information and data and the concurrent ability to use and
understand it as part of an inquiry process that employs critical thinking
skills offered social studies educators the possibility of developing the
tools their students needed to be active, caring citizens. After millions of
dollars spent on technology purchases, Internet connectivity, and training,
these lofty premises on how technology would effect citizenship education
are still, for the most part, unmet. This paper will seek to explore the
reasons behind this failure focusing on the clash between those who would
use technology as an adjunct to instruction that ties into the high stakes
assessment culture versus those who see technology as a tool that can
broaden academic pursuits and empower its users.
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Paper
Title: GIS Internet Mapping and the Spatially Literate Citizen
Author:
Andrew J. Milson; University of North Texas
The rapid
advancements in the technologies associated with capturing, storing,
analyzing, and displaying geographic information have made Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) much more user-friendly and accessible than it
was just a few years ago. Recent innovations in serving interactive GIS
maps over the Internet have led many government agencies from the
municipal to the federal level to develop GIS websites as a means of
communicating geographic information to the citizenry. To achieve the full
benefit of this form of communication though, a citizen must possess
spatial thinking skills and the ability to interpret geographic
information. In this paper, I will review examples of GIS Internet mapping
websites and the purposes they serve. Additionally, I will explore the
implications of this form of communication and the need to address spatial
thinking as a component of civic education.
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Paper Title: Democracy is Not a Monologue
Author: Marsha Alibrandi; Fairfield
University
How social studies, citizenship and
participation are experienced, conceived, and taught are very different
than the experiences of teachers born during the baby boom. History
matters when it comes to the ways citizenship is socially constructed,
represented and taught. Absent from most textbooks are those issues in
US history when social action led the nation. Since Brown-v-Board
and the Civil Rights movement, subsequent court decisions have
effectively disabled desegregation. Schools are re-segregating (Harvard
Civil Rights Project, 1999,:
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/deseg/Resegrega
tion_American_Schools99.pdf).
In research on pre-service Social Studies
teachers integrating technology, the ‘digital divide’ was a factor
student teachers found problematic in classrooms in 2002-2003 (Bull,
2003). White students and educators may believe that the Internet
empowers and enables social action, but since its inception, there has
been a remarkable lack of effective social action.
The demographics of the US have and are
changing dramatically. In this century, the concept of racial and
ethnic ‘minorities’ will reverse. In collaborative projects in
currently ‘minority’ schools (Alibrandi, Beal, Wilson & Thompson, 2000;
Alibrandi & Sarnoff, 2006), students using Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) have developed new understandings and constructs of
citizenship. While these may be facilitated by integrating technology,
it requires commitment and vigilance. This presentation highlights
demographic GIS data and phenomena that reveal spatio-cultural patterns
to enhance and pose dilemmas in Civics, History, Government and
Economics classes.
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Paper
Title: Preparing Future E-Citizens to Research Public Policy Issues
Online: Old Skills in New Electronic Clothing or Truly Something Different?
Author:
Joe O'Brien; University of Kansas
Hunt &
Metcalf (1968), Engle and Ochoa (1988), Parker and Zumeta (1999) addressed
the importance of developing young people's ability to thoughtfully engage
in and, ultimately, take a well-reasoned position on public policy issues.
Learning how to research such issues is a critical component of this
ability. The advent of and advances in online technology not only is
raising the prospect of an electronic citizen, but also is transforming
how individuals research public policy matters. In Youth as E-Citizens:
Engaging the Digital Generation, Montgomery, Gottlieb-Robles, and Larson
(2004) documented ten examples of how young adults use online technology
to engage in civic activity. In turn, the
National Science Foundation provided funding for the Virtual Agora
Project, a research project designed to study the effects of online and
face-to-face democratic deliberation. These are but two indications of a
possible transformation to electronic citizenship, an effort well underway
in the European Union and member nations.
These
possible changes to how we conceive of citizenship in general and the
growing use of online tools to conduct research in particular causes me to
raise two questions. First, what is unique about online technology as a
research tool that distinguishes it from other research tools? Second,
what are abilities, related to learning about and taking a well reasoned,
knowledgeable position on a public policy issue, that either are new or
dramatically different when applied to online research? In seeking to
answer these questions, I will explore the idea of E-citizenship within
the context of becoming informed about public policy matters through the
use of online technology and use this exploration as a frame of reference
for discussing the implications for preparing middle and secondary
students to conduct research online.
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Paper
Title: "Awake and buckle on the armor of heroic citizenship!"*
Documenting the American South and Citizenship Education
Author:
Meghan McGlinn; Old Dominion University
Effective
social studies education combines four elements: content, skills, values,
and action. It could be argued that many classrooms emphasize the first
element, content, to the detriment of the other
elements.
However, if citizenship education is to find its origins in
the social
studies classroom, all four elements must be present.
Students
must not only be knowledgeable, but they must also be able to make
informed decisions, have the desire to participate in the public debate,
and be encouraged to take action. In order to explore this model further,
my research focuses on whether digital libraries can contribute to
citizenship education by offering teachers and students to opportunity to
combine content, skills, values, and action in the social studies
classroom.
Using one
particular digital library, Documenting the American South, as an example,
I explore the way this collection could be utilized in citizenship
education in the future. I will describe the collection and the historic
perspectives on citizenship education it offers. Then, I will provide an
overview of a current research study which explores the ways teachers use
this collection in their classrooms. Finally, I will provide exemplars
from the collection that could be used by teachers to bring together the
four elements described above to create effective activities in
citizenship education.
*Stephen
Elliot (1864) Vain is the Help of Man. Retrieved from:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/elliotts/elliotts.html
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Paper
Title: Youth Talk for Civic Action: An Examination of Digital Networking
Tools
Authors:
Kenneth T. Carano,
Natalie Mixon,
and Michael J. Berson; University of South Florida
The Internet
has provided youth a sense of empowerment. Through innovative websites and
blogs, youth are discovering social networks, which are successfully
providing many youth a voice in the public arena.
These forms
of communication are becoming so powerful, even President Bush
acknowledged its impact of providing information and suggested that the
United State s will have a freer press if the public embraces these new,
innovative ways of communicating. This manuscript will examine the methods
in which social networking tools are being integrated in youth civic
websites to foster civic dialogue and debate among different student
groups. Many civic sites, geared towards youth, have successfully shaped
their activities and used language, which makes it attractive for youth to
engage in the public forum. Some of those sites, which are encouraging a
movement towards social activism, will be explored. In addition, this
paper will explore ways these innovations can be applied in classroom
settings.
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Paper
Title: Ideology, civics, and web-based discourse
Author:
John K. Lee, Georgia State University
Ideologies
or belief systems frame much of the discourse on social studies
instruction and social studies content. Whether the discussions are
focused on how to teach or what we teach, social studies teachers and
students carry with them beliefs that shape their thoughts and often guide
their arguments. With the advent of the Web, social studies related
discourse is increasingly being facilitated in online communities. The
open ideological construct of these environments enables a free exchange
of ideas. Along with this freedom comes a demand for critical literacy on
the part of the user. This exploratory study examines the dynamics of
selected online communities where civic oriented discourse and dialogue is
common. Discourse and systems analysis will be utilized is this study.
Preliminary findings suggest that online civic discourse requires a high
degree of self-regulation, skepticism, and monitoring. In addition to
reporting findings, I will suggest recommendations for facilitating online
civic discourse in public web-based communities.
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Paper
Title: PLAYING FOR KEEPS: COMPUTER GAMES AND THE LEARNING OF CIVICS
Author:
Nicholas B. deKanter, Muzzy Lane Software
In 2006,
"always on" is not another feature of the broadband Internet experience;
it is the mindset of kids who see computers, the Web, iPods and cell
phones as standard operating equipment. To them this is not capital-T
Technology, much the way that baby boomers don't really consider the
telephone, television, or radio to be Technology. This is their world, and
all those gadgets are normal parts of that world.Their social environment
is defined not just in geographical space, but also in digital space. It
is in this environment that students are defining and practicing their
civic persona.
Among the
many facets that make up the digital world that today's students live in
are computer and video games. This paper will explore the impact video
games can have on civic education by setting a groundwork for how people
learn from electronic games and reviewing game examples with strong civic
content. Finally, with many games garnering their share of bad press and
with the understanding that much of teaching civics is instructing
students how to make informed choices, strategies will be explored that
engage students in thinking critically about games, their role within the
game, and their role in society.
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Paper Title: What is a
Citizen? Changing Definitions
Author: Cynthia Sunal,
The University of Alabama
This paper examines how 1,631 citizens who are K-12
students, utilized the Internet in activities that can be construed as
citizenship events and whether such utilization may be changing
definitions of citizenship among Internet users. The definition of
citizenship impacts schools as they translate that meaning into a
curriculum and instructional approaches that teach the definition to
students. Data were collected about these students from 60 in-service
teachers. First, teachers considered how and to what extent their
students, K-12, are involved in school activities that would incorporate
greater student control, on a continuum from greater student
control/lesser teacher control through greater teacher control/lesser
student control. Second, they considered the amount of community
involvement of students, both school-sponsored and non school-sponsored
and the extent of student control. Third, participants considered how
their students used technology to operationally demonstrate their
citizenship utilizing logs they kept of student usage as a data source for
this consideration. The findings indicate a range of citizenship events
occurred and find those events associated with Internet usage were high in
frequency. Discussion of the effects of the Internet on citizenship events
indicate a changing definition of citizenship among these K-12 students.
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Paper Title:
Does technology enhance the teaching of democratic principles to elementary
aged students?
Author:
Scott Waring,
University of Central Florida
This paper
takes a critical look at ways in which technology has been purported to
enhance the teaching of democratic principles in American elementary school
classrooms. Using Dewey's (1897, 1916) approach to education as a social
process and Dale's (1946) Cone of Experience as a framework, this paper will
examine ways in which technology has assisted in the teaching of democratic
principles to grade school children and possibilities for the future. Dewey
(1897) states, "the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of
individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life" (p. 80). Do any
of the readily available technologies allow elementary school teachers an
opportunity to do this? If so, does technology enable teachers an
opportunity to prepare students for "proper social life" in a manner
unavailable prior to these technologies? This manuscript will attempt to
address these questions.
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Paper
Title: The Rise of the Internet, Erosion of Privacy, and Transformation
of Democracy
Author:
Daniel W. Stuckart,
; Wagner College
The United
States Constitution provides the legal foundation for individual
liberties, but does not expressly guarantee the right of privacy. Over
time, case law, statutes, and regulations evolved to establish privacy
principles, often in reaction to new technologies. Recently, the meteoric
rise of the internet has fostered democracy and concomitantly eroded the
right of privacy. This paper explores ways that the internet has
challenged the right of privacy, leading to changing notions of democracy
and implications for citizenship education.
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Paper
Title: North Carolina Social Studies Teachers' Internet Use
Author:
Adam M. Friedman;University of North Carolina-Charlotte
The Internet
has been lauded by scholars as an invaluable tool for teaching social
studies, and virtually every public school in the United States has an
Internet connection. However, recent social studies and technology
literature demonstrates that generally speaking and for a variety of
reasons, social studies teachers do not necessarily utilize the Internet
to the potential to which it has previously been cited.This study of over
200 social studies teachers across North Carolina sought to examine this
disconnect, and discover the large-scale factors that encourage and impede
social studies teachers' Internet use. Initial findings reflect previous
literature in that a clear majority of teachers desire to use the Internet
more often than they currently are, perceived access to equipment is
paramount to social studies teachers' Internet
use, and other important factors include state standards and their
associated tests as well as training.
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Paper Title:
Education for Democracy, the Internet, and Inquiry Pedagogy: Intersections and
Issues
Author: Scott W. DeWitt; University at
Buffalo
A professional development project that
sought to help high school social studies teachers incorporate inquiry
methodology into their instructional practices through instruction in
inquiry and in the use of computer technology provides a means to
examine the intersection of the goals of democratic education, inquiry,
and instructional uses of computer technology. The teachers involved in
the project provide evidence for the areas where Internet use can
facilitate democratic educational practice, and also where such use must
be supplemented.
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