Therefore, it can be stated that teachers often focus more on teaching rather than learning. This perspective can lead to the misconception that learning is the activity when, in fact, learning is derived from a careful consideration of the meaning of the activity.

Furthermore, the format of the test causes many educators to erroneously believe that the state test or provincial exam only assesses low-level knowledge and skill. This, too, is false. Indeed, the data from released national tests show conclusively that the students have the most difficulty with those items that require understanding and transfer, not recall or recognition.

The UbD framework promotes not only acquisition, but also the student’s ability to know why the knowl-edge and skills are important, and how to apply or transfer them in meaningful, professional, and socially important ways

In Stage 3 of backward design, teachers plan the most appropriate lessons and learning activities to address the three different types of goals identified in Stage 1: transfer, meaning making, and acquisition (T, M, and A).

• Can explain concepts, principles, and processes by putting it their own words, teaching it to others, justifying their answers, and showing their reasoning.• Can interpret by making sense of data, text, and experience through images, analogies, stories, and models.• Can apply by effectively using and adapting what they know in new and complex contexts.• Demonstrate perspective by seeing the big picture and recognizing differ-ent points of view.• Display empathy by perceiving sensitively and walking in someone else’s shoes.• Have self-knowledge by showing meta-cognitive awareness, using productive habits of mind, and reflect-ing on the meaning of the learning and experience

The perfor-mance tasks ask students to apply their learning to a new and authentic situation as means of assessing their understand-ing and ability to transfer their learning.

An important point in the UbD framework is to recognize that factual knowledge and skills are not taught for their own sake, but as a means to larger ends.

This first stage in the design process calls for clarity about priorities.

In the first stage of backward design, we consider our goals, examine established content standards (national, state, prov-ince, and district), and review curriculum expectations.

Simply stated, students are often not provided with opportunities in school to practice the web literacies necessary to read, write, and participate on the web.

he World Wide Web has become this generation’s defining technology for literacy. This technology facilitates access to an unlimited amount of online information in a participatory learning space.

It is important for students to recognize that although technology gives us a lot of power, it also restricts us in many ways, and we need to question how the affordances of technology modify our communication and our behavior.

I avoid putting my students in high-risk situations, but this does not mean avoiding teaching digital literacy. It means discussing with them why they would post a real photo of themselves as avatars

I allow them the choice of which platform to use for the support they need, but I make sure they ask questions. When is it best to do a Google search versus ask a question on Twitter? Why would students tweet to a particular hashtag or person versus another? When they tweet to people from another country in another time zone, what kind of context do they need to consider? What should they add, remove, or modify in order to communicate better?

eight elements of digital literacies, I have just mentioned the civic, critical, creative, and communicative. The other four are cultural, cognitive, constructive, and confidence

or example, teaching digital skills would include showing students how to download images from the Internet and insert them into PowerPoint slides or webpages. Digital literacy would focus on helping students choose appropriate images, recognize copyright licensing, and cite or get permissions, in addition to reminding students to use alternative text for images to support those with visual disabilities

Unfortunately, many focus on skills rather than literacies. Digital skills focus on what and how. Digital literacy focuses on why, when, who, and for whom.

Digital literacies are not solely about technical proficiency but about the issues, norms, and habits of mind surrounding technologies used for a particular purpose.

Being audience and culturally aware, resolving conflict appropriately, using technology tools effectively, and taking responsibility for personal and group productivity.

Learning through making involves constructing new content.

Approachable and accessible to diverse audiences and their needs. The map needs to be written in a language that is easy to understand, and relevant—why do web literacy skills matter to them. Applicable to interest and/or expertise. The map needs to connect to curriculum, credentials, professional development, and other resources to teach people the skills they need to engage online and offline.

Does one need to code in order to be considered web literate?

degree to which you can read, write, and participate on the web while producing, synthesizing, evaluating, and communicating information shapes what you can imagine—and what you can do. follows:

Knowing how to read, write, and participate in the digital world has become the 4th basic foundational skill next to the three Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic

s well as interventions on behalf of international development by organizations such as the United National Children’s Fund

Discursive and normative uncertainties mean that, for instance, “digital learning” is open to different interpretations, ranging from an instrumental concern with employability and growth to more idealist concerns for social mobility, social justice, and empowerment. In addition, given the huge inequalities in region, income, culture, sex, and so forth, efforts to promote digital opportunities can also become, inadvertently, the means by which inequalities are reproduced or new risks are encountered.

in-school and after-school virtual learning and online coordination of academic activities are further intensifying the already considerable academic pressures on children in middle-class households, with the potential to adversely affect parent-child relationships

Research on parental use of monitoring technologies suggests that such updates about children’s whereabouts may trigger authoritarian parents to be more controlling,19 which in turn is unlikely to enhance children’s academic performance.

For instance, the United States, among other wealthy countries, is witnessing calls for data-driven instruction in the hope that this can remove bias in student advancement, equalize education, and improve learning outcomes and teacher efficiency.

In India, progress depends on the business case for digital education, which is only slowly gaining ground as the education market develops software packages around textbook content

s the goal to prepare students for a competitive workforce, to connect marginalized youth, to support schools, or to provide progressive alternatives to school? The goals determine the means, and both have implications for evaluating technological interventions.

Or, consider that although most research stems from urban settings, many children globally live in rural areas (55% of the child population in China, for instance) where difficulties of mass migration, poverty, and loss of parents already undermine children’s well-being

Yet these promises are countered by prominent public and policy concerns over the harms to children associated with society’s growing reliance on digitally networked technologies.

This article documents the particular irony that while the world’s poorer countries look to research to find ways to increase access and accelerate the fair distribution of digital educational resources, the world’s wealthier countries look to research for guidance in managing excessive screen time, heavily commercial content, and technologies that intrude on autonomy and privacy

Media use that provides effective distraction, humor, connection to peers, and a wide social network could serve to help adolescents avoid depression and potentially reduce its impact on their functioning

A recent meta-analysis of 131 studies23 highlighted the following key findings: (1) most estimates of the prevalence of cyberbullying among adolescents fall between 11% and 48%, depending on the definition of cyberbullying, group demographics, and the reporting time frame; (2) there is a substantial degree of overlap between adolescents who bully others offline and those who engage in cyberbullying (similarly, victims of cyberbullying are often victimized offline); and (3) adolescents who experience cyberbullying are at increased risk for a wide range of mental and physical health problems.17 The majority of victims report negative feelings, such as embarrassment, worry, fear, depression, or loneliness after cyberbullying events.

In Japan, researchers noted anxiety in students (mean age = 18.4 years) such that when they did not receive an instant reply to their text message, they felt a fear of being ostracized

Although primarily correlational, research suggests that young people who replace in-person exchanges with virtual interactions intensify their social impairments, whereas those who use online exchanges to supplement existing friendships report improvements in the quality and closeness of their existing relationships.

Researchers have documented that the options of texting, instant messaging, and emailing have become preferred by some individuals over face-to-face interactions for some types of contact.

Research has shown that individuals with Internet overuse or addiction report using it to avoid negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression

A variety of surveys dating back as far as the 1930s have shown that a substantial proportion of children experience acute fearful reactions to various aspects of the content of media, especially movies, television dramas, and the news.

It is often difficult to calm a child who has been intensely frightened by a program or movie, and the resulting loss of sleep and heightened levels of unnecessary anxiety can cause physical, cognitive, and emotional problems.

n contrast, research with adults showed that using the Internet to communicate with friends and family was linked with decreases in depression.6

ocial networking sites can influence depression and anxiety in adolescents through technology-based negative social comparison, resulting in negative self-evaluation or anxiety about evaluation by others.

. Alan’s code made it incredibly easy to do that. Over the next couple of months I’ll do the same for a few other stories.

Schools routinely caution students about the things they post on social media, and the tenor of this conversation — particularly as translated by the media — is often tinged with fears that students will be seen “doing bad things” or “saying bad things” that will haunt them forever.