Episode 140: Teaching Digital Citizenship with Dana Anderson
Dana Anderson teaches digital citizenship, language arts, and literature to middle and high school students at Bridgemont International School. She's also served as a kids' and teens' digital content expert for non-profits, tech companies, teacher training programs, and schools. Dana is also a writer, a nature and animal lover, and a mom of three.
In this episode, we discuss Dana's educator journey and what she feels educators need to do to find success in teaching or other fields. She also opines on AI and the possibilities it can provide for teachers.
Topics Discussed:
How teaching was a long tradition in her family
How her tech background helps her teaching
The importance of high quality content for kids
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Dana Anderson teaches digital citizenship, language arts and literature to middle and high school students at Bridgemont International School. She's also served as a kids and teens digital content expert for nonprofits, tech companies, teacher training programs and schools. Dana is also a writer, a nature and animal lover and a mom of three. Welcome Dana. So nice to have you here.
Dana Anderson
Thank you, Lily. I'm so happy to be here.
Lily Jones
So I would love for us to in whatever direction you'd like to tell us about your journey as an educator.
Dana Anderson
Okay, well, I should have known a long time ago that I was going to be an educator eventually, because both of my grandmothers were one room school teachers, and my brother is was also an elementary school teacher, but I started out my career journey as a journalist, and once I had my first child and started looking into how I wanted to educate her, fell in love with the Montessori philosophy, and ended up getting trained thinking that I would just stay at the preschool level. One thing rolled into another and began teaching students with special learning needs at the elementary level. So then got my elementary certification, and then got an amazing opportunity to teach adolescence. And never thought, never in a million years, thought I would be teaching middle and high schoolers, and here I am finding myself loving teaching teaching middle and high schoolers, and in the process of getting my adolescent certification. So I have now been teaching pre K through high school, all kind of by accident, and loving every minute of it.
Lily Jones
That's amazing. And I love to hear about the progression too. I mean, I think sometimes teachers feel stuck of like, oh, well, I'm a first grade teacher. So I'm going to stay a first grade teacher, and I love how you're changing it up and following these new directions and expanding your own experiences there.
Dana Anderson
Absolutely it really is one of those things that you just don't know until you try and again. If you would have told me that I could teach middle schoolers and that no karma would be coming back at me from my own middle school days, I would have said no way, but it's actually turning out to be really enjoyable. And middle schoolers happen to be fascinating, fun, interesting people. Who knew?
Lily Jones
Yes, I know I have a seventh grader. My daughter's in seventh grade are about to be done any day now, and it's been interesting just seeing it from a parent perspective, because I taught lower elementary, and so middle school still, to me, feels a little intimidating, but seeing all these like cool middle schoolers is pretty inspiring.
Dana Anderson
It really is. And, you know, I have this background in tech as well, as you know, and so being able to utilize my expertise in that area to help kids navigate this digital world that we're all trying to learn to navigate together, has felt on mission for me in a way that, again, I did not expect my teaching career to go in that direction, and here I find myself teaching digital citizenship and and loving using my other skills that I have to help kids and teens.
Lily Jones
So tell us about your background in tech and kind of how you got interested in that and your current focus on digital citizenship.
Dana Anderson
Okay, so I started working for Common Sense Media back in the early days of Common Sense Media, and I loved their mission. As you and your listeners may know, they are the largest non profit, non partisan organization that really helps parents and now teachers as well, with common sense education help navigate the digital world for kids and teens. And so I loved working with them. I did product assessment for for many, many years with them, whether that be apps, websites, digital, streaming content, educational products, etc. And really enjoyed my time, a time and common sense, and still definitely promote all of the work that they do. They're an incredible organization. And then got tapped to work on, as you did, the teacher approved program with Google. And so worked there for a number of years with their kids and families team, and really enjoyed that as well, just knowing that there are really good people out there trying to make sure that content is high quality for kids on the internet is reassuring, and I hope, reassures parents and teachers as well, that there are good people in tech really trying to do good things for kids and teens. And then as concurrently, I was teaching, and so that is kind of where I decided, when I started teaching middle and high schoolers, to really start doing a deep dive into digital citizenship. I had just previously used the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum with my younger students. It's pretty much a plug and play curriculum, and that's kind of what I needed when I was working in the classroom for kids with learning differences. I needed something that I could just go to know it was high quality, and go with it, and that was great and what I needed at the time. But as I developed more and started really kind of wanting to get a little bit more creative using my own expertise, and now with middle and high schoolers figuring out how to meet their needs, how to keep them engaged, now is when my creativity has really leveled up, and I've started kind of creating my own digital citizenship curriculum for them.
Lily Jones
So cool, and it seems like such a cool combination, too, of your background as a journalist, plus your experience as a teacher and working with Ed Tech, all kind of coming together with digital citizenship. And I know we'll talk about AI and kind of how that landscape is shifting as well. But I'd love to hear from you a little bit just thinking about teachers who might feel overwhelmed even diving into digital citizenship. Where do you think they should start?
Dana Anderson
Well, common sense education, first and foremost, they do have both the K through 12 digital citizenship curriculum, which, as I said, is essentially plug and play, or you can become as interactive as you want it to be. And then they also have new AI Lily content that that goes with their digital citizenship curriculum. So that's wonderful. The DQ Institute kind of like, you know, we learned about IQ and EQ, all those different cues. The DQ Institute also has wonderful resources I just pulled up on my other screen here looking at their dq, they have like a pie chart, and it talks about all of the different competencies that we want to make sure we hit when kids are learning digital citizenship and they run from your rights, your responsibilities, Your security, how to communicate peacefully with other people online. And of course, that goes into cyber bullying, which is another interest, deep interest of mine, because I am a survivor of deep, deep bullying, and in my own middle and early high school experience, and so being able to draw from my own empathy for that issue, for people on both sides of that equation, really has been fulfilling as well, and then they go into things like privacy and safety and just all the nuts and bolts of things that we know kids need to know to navigate the digital world safely. So the DQ Institute is another wonderful resource. ISTE has some really good things on that. The World Economic Forum has some things on digital competencies. There are so many, and I can give you some to put with this show if you want.
Lily Jones
Yes, please.
Dana Anderson
I have links and resources to include. I'll definitely send those to you.
Lily Jones
Yeah, that's so great. I've never heard of the DQ Institute, and I'm so intrigued. That sounds like an amazing resource.
Dana Anderson
They really are.
Lily Jones
So what about with younger kids? I know your work with with middle school and high school students currently. But as we know, you know, digital literacy can start at a really young age. And what do you recommend?
Dana Anderson
So the youngest I've ever taught it that is the kindergarten age, or primary, as we call it in Montessori. I'm a Montessori teacher, and common sense does have curriculum all the way at that level, they have the cutest videos that just teach kids these little jingles about what to do when you need to put the device down, that teachers and parents can share that language then that the students have heard in these videos with these digital citizens that are these cute little creatures. They're just little chunky creatures. And so giving kids that shared language, teaching kids the interception of knowing what it feels like in your body when you maybe have been on screens too much, or when you're seeing something that you shouldn't see. They talk about red flag feelings and what to do if you have a red flag feeling, how to go get a trusted adult, how to, you know, close something down, whatever that happens to be, because as we know, as safe as we want our kids online experiences to be, sooner or later, a mistake is going to happen. So we want to give them those tools as young as kindergarten to know what to do when that happens, but also just again that tapping into the feelings of social emotional. How much time doing self regulation? What is high quality content teach? Even teaching kids as young as kindergarten to assess when, say, an in app purchase is popping up too much and is disrupting their experience. Um, you know, all of those kind of things to really arm them to say, I'm I'm in control here, and I want to monitor my own content can start pretty young.
Lily Jones
So powerful. It reminds me of when we were doing App Reviews many years ago and looking at some of these features. My kids were younger, and I was talking to them about this too, you know, of like, hey, let's play this app together. Oh, these pop ups keep coming up, or these ads keep showing up. And it was a new level to a conversation that we hadn't really had explicitly before, and I found that that was so helpful that even now they'll be like, Oh, this app has too many ads, or like, it's asking me to buy something, and having that critical lens on it is so powerful.
Dana Anderson
It really is. It's such a gift to give kids that at a young age, to put them in that driver's seat and say, No, I don't have to just absorb whatever is coming at me. I am still in control of my experience, whether that be something that's in on the playground or on a screen. I'm still in control of my experience. Giving them that kind of agency is is such a gift.
Lily Jones
Yes. And like you said, we can't protect from everything, no matter what we try and do, right? And so we have to have that next push of like, giving them the agency and the control there.
Dana Anderson
Yeah, and that is one thing that I would love to highlight to teachers listening to the podcast, is if they can become that trusted adult for their students when something does go wrong, when there is a mistake made, that is such an incredible opportunity to have an impact in young people's lives, especially if you're teaching at the middle or high school level, but at any level, knowing that they have someone in their classroom environment, they can talk to about these topics in a non judgmental way, in a way they can go to this trusted adult for help. It's It's priceless, and I know parents would be thrilled to know that their teachers are offering family support in that way, offering their students. Because sometimes I think kids are afraid to go to parents if something goes wrong, whereas teachers, we have that little bit of space in between there, so that we have more of a taking a breath and okay what to do now, and who do we need to involve and how to help this student navigate this it can be a real gift to not only the students, but to the parents as well.
Lily Jones
Oh, absolutely. So powerful. And so I'd love to shift gears a little bit and talk about AI, because, as we know, that has really become at the forefront of everything in the past couple years. And so I'm curious just your thoughts on AI in schools teaching students about AI and involving them in any like AI related policies.
Dana Anderson
Well, I have to say I am learning right along with everybody else. I'm actually reading this book right now more than words, how to think about writing in the age of AI, because as I go with my high school literature students and my middle school language arts students this fall, I'm thinking, Okay, what else do I need to know? How can I work this from a different angle? Everything is changing in real time for all of us, and so we all have to be talking about this together. I was just part of the American Montessori society did a future classroom exhibit at their conference this year in Denver, and so I was part of that future classroom exhibit that we had materials to help students understand what AI is and how it works all the way down to the kindergarten level, and really trying to understand how we can partner again, partnering with our students in this way so that we are seen as CO learners with them. We aren't just automatically doing that knee jerk reaction to this is cheating. We aren't banning them or barring them from using AI but at the same time, we're understanding those the Coppa compliance. We're not just handing them AI tools and saying, Go at it. We're understanding that tools have age restrictions. They don't necessarily have guardrails on them for kids who are teens or younger, all of those kind of things are going to take so much real time learning. And that's again, where I just have to promote common sense. A their AI Lily. It's wonderful but, but just going and looking at all the various AI educators is another really good one, going out there, looking for resources, continuing to resource ourselves. Talk about it with other teachers. I'm sure you'll have more more people talking about this as upcoming years go on as on your podcast, we all have to be working on this together.
Dana Anderson
Mm, hmm, yes. I mean, it's such an interesting experience all being in this new experience together. You know, teachers haven't had years of experience learning this topic as they have in other topics, and so it's an interesting opportunity to have more of a level playing field, or like a co created process with students here. And I appreciate your guidance, of like, what to consider that it's not a free for all, you know, but that it can be something that we intentionally do along with students absolutely, and being in that place of humility of saying, you know we are, we are learning this along with you were. We're experiencing these social shifts at the same time that you are, I think, offers a level of authenticity to us as teachers that it could help in every area of our teaching when we are honest about this in this way, I will tell you one short anecdote. So my high school students and I in a digital citizenship class, we're talking about, we have read an article about hallucinations and how AI, if it doesn't know the answer to a question, will often hallucinate. It will just throw anything out there and just hope we believe it right. And so this is a huge problem for engineers working on AI right now. How to get it to stop hallucinating and just say when they it doesn't know, I don't know. And one of my high schoolers said that sounds like the most adult human thing I've ever heard. AI does have a hard time and it says I don't know. It doesn't know!.
Lily Jones
That's so good. It was really good.
Dana Anderson
So we have to understand that this is a great opportunity for us to say, I don't know, I'm not sure, but we're in this together, and we want you to be we want you to be the leaders. We want your good hearts and minds. Things to come out and help us figure this out.
Lily Jones
And with that, thinking about hearts and minds, like, let's think about what AI can't do. You know, the role of a teacher stepping in, hopefully being eased in some way by AI, but also really leaning into the things that only teachers can do. So I'm curious about your thoughts about that, and what human centered skills teachers and students need now more than ever.
Dana Anderson
I'm so glad you brought that up, because for me, it this is a this is a golden opportunity for teachers to level up on our human skills. We hear all of these, you know, sirens going off. This is the end of teaching, and all students will need are their individualized AI chat bots that will tailor every lesson and to me now this says, "Okay, we know education has not been working ideally for kids and teens for quite some time, and for educators for quite some time. Let's face it."
Lily Jones
Yes.
Dana Anderson
So what can we do now as humans to really level up? Where is it that we can increase those human centric skills, like empathy, like creativity, like following students in curating things that they they would like, because we know them so well, because we know their family situations, because we know how much sleep they've gotten recently, because they've been all of these kind of things. This is the time for us to level up our human skills. And in Montessori, we talk about, we're always working on the back end skills for students. So that's concentration, coordination, sense of order, sequencing and independence. And while AI does do some of those things, like sequencing and, you know, sense of order, those kind of things, the idea that we can assist students in those human skills like concentration and independence, are really where we can make a huge difference. And hopefully AI will free us up to be able to do some of those things better and more deeply. So that, that is my hope.
Lily Jones
Yes, I hope so too. And as you were talking, I just kept thinking about like all the non verbal information we get from students and they get from us too. You know, there are so many things that AI will not be able to pick up when you think about personalized learning, because it's not even in language, like it's just being able to read cues and knowing the person having the deep relationship. So I also hope that we can, through this experience, even acknowledge, like all the things that teachers are doing all the time to support their students, and thinking about what we can really lean into as educators, and what things might we might be able to take off our plates a bit.
Dana Anderson
Exactly that, exactly that, yes, and as long as we can frame it in that way for ourselves, I see This is a really exciting time, and not a time to fear or a time to even worse, put more barriers. But then between us and our students, again, going back to the cheating and the oversight and all these other kind of things like this, is an opportunity for us to actually build bridges with students in what we do best and hand off the things that we can hand off to AI in a different way. So I'm hopeful.
Lily Jones
Yes, absolutely. And Dana, you've been such a great model of being a classroom teacher while also doing all these other interesting things. And so I'm curious if you can talk to our teachers out there who might be wanting to work beyond the classroom, whether they stay a classroom teacher or move out of the classroom entirely. What advice would you give them about getting started?
Dana Anderson
Well, thank you, Lily. Well, I would say, first of all, find people that you really like to work with, like I liked working with you truly like both in my my other work and in my school, if you have fellow faculty and administration, I at bridgemont, my my administration and my my fellow faculty are just wonderful, creative people who are always looking to do interdisciplinary things together. So I love my colleagues and in my other work, I have always loved my colleagues. If you are unsatisfied, I think with the people that you work with, it's going to spill over into your students or into your whatever your side gigs or whatever your other work happened to be, it's it's going to spill over into your stress level. And let's face it, teachers, we overwork. We think about our students long after we are out of the classroom in the day, we're laying in bed thinking about our students and what we can do better tomorrow the next so our stress level levels have to be at a low everywhere else. So find something you love to do with, good people you love to do it with, and then the schedules work. I will say, I have in a lot of weeks in the past few years, worked 60 to 80 hour weeks. People would say, that's crazy, and I would say, but I love everything that I do. So you know it's but you have to love it. You have to love it, you have to love it, and you have to love the people you're working with.
Lily Jones
That's great advice. And I think that often teachers think that they'll only get that sense of purpose or the aligned people that they work with through working in schools, which like, hopefully you do get that in school. Some people don't, but it also can happen in other places. So I appreciated what you said, of like, if you love the work and you love the people you're working with, then it's a whole different ball game. And that can happen in schools or outside of schools, like there's so much great work that can happen and needs to happen in education. So seeing more possibilities.
Dana Anderson
Absolutely and I love the work that you're doing. We were just talking about your work at when you visited Goldman, elevating teachers and what we do and what we bring to the table in society, to the rest of the society. You know, we think about everybody looks back. You even have presidents looking back and naming their fourth grade teacher as a large influence in their life, right? So we know in the aggregate that teachers matter in our society, but when people see an individual teacher say, oh, you're a teacher, and you're also doing this? Or, Oh, you're teaching, and you're also, you know, impacting this area? Wow, that's, I didn't really realize that. Well, yes, Teachers, we can do a lot.
Lily Jones
Yes, I think we just need to elevate the profession of teaching as a whole, you know, to be able to be seen as the prestigious profession that lives and that we can gain all these skills and make this big impact in so many ways. But I think, you know, I could talk about it forever, but, like, systemically, right? Like teachers are just seen as martyrs and seen as self sacrificing and all these things that we start to believe in ourselves, and that's not true. Like teaching is such a amazing profession that allows us to do so many different things. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. So Dana, it's been such a pleasure talking with you and hearing about your amazing expertise. Can you tell people how they can connect with you?
Dana Anderson
You can find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, I will reach out to you. And yeah, any anytime I'm happy to help anybody move on the road to digital citizenship. Everybody should have a curriculum in their schools. 100%. That would be my, my greatest hope.
Lily Jones
Yes, absolutely. We'll put your LinkedIn in the show notes and any other resources that you want to share.
Lily Jones
Thanks, Lily.
Lily Jones
Awesome. Thanks Dana.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai