Digital Citizenship: Learning Foundational Technology Skills

Erin Dentmon
Nov 18 2024

As the Information Age continues to dramatically redefine the ways in which we learn, work and engage, Ravenscroft faculty are committed to ensuring that students in all three divisions build the knowledge and skills they need to thrive and lead in the online world.

In this three-part series about digital citizenship, we explore how our youngest Ravens master the basics of computer and tablet use, how middle-grade students develop a sense of responsibility alongside their burgeoning digital voices and how both teachers and students explore the opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence as this latest technological advancement enters the mainstream.

In the Lower School, a comprehensive curricular approach ensures that students in Kindergarten through fifth grade are learning the foundational computer skills they need for success in school and beyond.

In this April 2023 photo, Dalilah Settles ’33 scans a book using Winston Library’s self-checkout system, just one of the many ways technology is integrated into Lower School students’ day-to-day experiences; Joe Squire ’34 and Emmie El Mann ’34 use tablets and headphones to complete a second-grade assignment in this photo from the 2023-24 school year.

Imagine a teacher beginning a class with this direction: “I’d like you all to take out your Chromebooks and start working on your slideshow.”

Seems simple, right? But think about how many skills it takes for a student to follow those directions: turning the computer on, checking the battery level and plugging in the charger if necessary, logging in, connecting to the internet, navigating to Google Slides and finding their slideshow among all the other files — all before actually getting started!

Young people today are considered digital natives, so one might think doing all of that comes easily for young Ravens. But just like when they learn to write their names or tie their shoes, these skills need to be taught. That’s where the Lower School’s curriculum for teaching technology skills — developed by teachers, members of the Library & Technology Department and Chief Information Officer Louis Tullo through grant-funded work over the last three summers — comes in.

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“This builds on the mission”

The work starts with making sure all students, beginning in Kindergarten, have the basic skills they need to get the most out of their experiences in the classroom, library and other learning places on campus.

“The biggest challenge is that kids come in with a wide range of experiences with the technology,” Lower School Innovation, Design and Engineering teacher Danny Carlson explained. “Some kids come in without ever having used a mouse or a physical keyboard. Or their experience with technology might be extensive, but only with a touch device.”

“Things as basic as powering a computer on and off or logging in and out can actually be pretty cumbersome for a third-grader,” third-grade teacher Gabe Clark added.

Recognizing the need for more formal computer-skills education, faculty members started their work in the summer of 2022 by turning to the International Society for Technology in Education Standards. After reviewing the comprehensive collection of standards and how other schools had implemented them, the group set out to create a curriculum that would be unique to Ravenscroft.

Chris Wilcox ’32 and Jaiden Chhabra ’32 use PebbleGoNext to learn terminology about endangered species as their third-grade class kicks off a research project about animals in April 2023; fourth-graders Savi Patel ’33, Evan Torgler ’33, Kabeer Kheterpal ’33, Leo Zheng ’33, Athena Tong ’33 and Carina Cui ’33 engage in game-based learning following a lesson in Winston Library.

“Our mission is to prepare students to thrive in a complex and interdependent world. Technology affects everything in that world, so this curriculum builds on the mission pretty clearly,” Tullo said. “Developing our own lessons ensures that we can be true to our own identity as a school and help students own their academic growth.”

Teachers’ ability to collaborate on the standards and lessons in the summer months was an essential part of creating materials specifically for Ravenscroft. Such work is made possible by endowed funds including the Board of Directors Endowment, the Helton-Kalorin Family Endowment Fund, the O’Herron Distinguished Faculty Award Endowment Fund, the Qubain Award for Teaching Excellence Fund and the Parents’ Association Endowment Fund.

Winston librarian Emily Zeblo shows fifth-grade students how to navigate the school’s research databases, beginning with logging in; Ben Silva ’32 uses his Chromebook to explore a potential resource for his project.

“I’ve been part of six or seven [curriculum-development] teams, which I wouldn’t have been able to do without these grants,” Lower School librarian Jessica Ortolano noted. “I’ve been able to collaborate on new curriculums, help plug in information literacy skills and help with scope and sequence. At no other school I’ve been part of has there been anything like this.”

“Leverage technology to showcase learning”

Homeroom teachers deliver many of these skills-based lessons, so the group that developed the curriculum designed it to be accessible to teachers with varying comfort levels around teaching technology. The lessons are designed to be fun, quick (at 8-10 minutes each) and require little additional planning. Some teachers present lessons as games, such as a matching game Kindergarteners and first-graders can play to learn the parts of a computer.

“We were trying to maximize teachers’ dedication to implementing the program, so we needed to make these lessons as close to zero prep-time as possible,” Carlson said. “It's plug and play, as much as it can be.”

The curriculum builds to more sophisticated topics for higher grades, such as how the Ravenscroft Honor Code applies to working on a computer and the proper way to attribute images pulled from the internet. Hands-on practice gives Ravens plenty of opportunities to master these skills.

Technology lessons in Kindergarten through second grade, developed by Lower School Innovation, Design and Engineering teacher Danny Carlson and Lower School librarian Emily Zeblo, focus on using devices such as Chrome tablets and understanding their different parts and what they do.

“For kids to leverage technology to showcase their learning and deepen their understanding, they have to know how to use the tools,” Clark explained. “If students don’t know how to use the functions in Google Slides, for example, like adding an image and attributing it, then they can’t use that tool to its maximum potential.”

One of the most useful lessons has been teaching students to organize their files in Google Drive. Students get to practice what they learn in daily work as well as on special projects, including research they do with Ortolano and her colleague Emily Zeblo in Winston Library.

As students’ understanding of technology grows in grades three through five, lessons include screencasts such as Ortolano’s tutorial on creating folders, at top, and presentations on file management.

“Students use their Chromebooks and tablets to access our library databases to conduct research. We begin with guided instruction as a whole group, modeling key components of the research process like where and how to access articles and books and how to cite their sources,” Zeblo explained. “We offer opportunities for guided practice before gradually releasing the responsibility to the students to research independently. These lessons also remind students of the importance of being ethical users of information and technology.”

The greatest power in the curriculum, its creators say, is in its steady rhythm. Understanding the basics of computers and related educational technology, through lessons that intentionally build on each other, helps students use the tools more deeply, more confidently and more responsibly, positioning them for success throughout their academic lives.

Students also learn how to use Canvas, Ravenscroft’s learning management system; here, students in fourth and fifth grades take on a “challenge task” to demonstrate understanding of how to send a message to their teachers.

Students in fourth and fifth grades — who are on the cusp of the next stage of technology use, navigating the online world as content creators and collaborators — also benefit from lessons that introduce responsible digital citizenship. Read more about Ravenscroft’s role in providing that guidance in part two of this series, Preparing Students for the Online World.

In part three, Exploring the Potential of AI, find out how faculty and students are navigating both the opportunities and the challenges presented by the explosion of this powerful technology into mainstream use.