Teaching Pirates and Scallywags

Stories are a powerful way to help others understand something.  There are common threads of understanding that come from sharing your experience.  My revelation as a media arts teacher during the days of Napster is an example of sharing my personal experience and making connections that will hopefully  help educators understand the difference between “tech savvy kids” and students who are digital citizens.  

Back in 2000, as a new teacher I eagerly agreed to write grants for CTE funds and then authored course descriptions for three-year pathways for both multimedia and video production.  No small feat, but I was motivated with the idea of transforming learning, at least in the high school’s business department, by upgrading from typing and accounting classes, to more relevant classes.  We got the funding and most of the six courses UC/CSU a-g approved.  I was so jazzed when the iMacs  were delivered and the kids signed up for the classes.  I remember the classes were so popular our school had to add a section.  This was a game changer for these students back in 2000.  I was flying high, feeling good, knowing I had helped our school start moving in the right direction for transforming learning.  

About two weeks into the first year  I started to realize I was teaching pirates and scallywags.  My students had no idea about copyright, digital footprints or many other ethical behaviors while working online.  Students openly shared how they were downloading songs, movies and software with online sharing programs with no idea, and worst, not caring that this was illegal.

Desperate I looked for some way to to teach these kids about ethical behavior online.  Late one night I found the FBI Cybercrime web site.  Back then it had stories of criminals that had been caught and prosecuted for pirating software, music and movies online, and more.  I created a collaborative project using this information for my students. I knew it was a winner when I heard two 9th graders working on their project and reading from the website a story of some cybercriminal on the site, one of the students saying “Wow, that guy got jail time and was fined for that!  I do that all the time.”  Every year after that I spent the first week of the school year with this activity, reinforcing the ideas of digital literacy and citizenship throughout the year.  In good humor I told my students I felt better knowing I wouldn’t be reading about how any of them being arrested or fired from their jobs because they were cybercriminals.  While the students got a chuckle from this I felt a great sense of joy knowing they were empowered to move into their future lives of college and career with the understanding of how to behave in cyberspace.

Two years ago I joined MDUSD as the district Ed Tech administrator.   Digital literacy and citizenship is a big focus for me still in this position.  Luckily, today there are lots of resources to help teachers develop the qualities of digital literacy and citizenship.