Promoting Digital Citizenship among Student-Teachers: The Role of Project-Based Learning in Improving Appropriate Online Behaviors

Abstract

Due to the widespread use of the Internet, digital space has now pervaded schools. This study aimed to investigate student-teachers’ perspectives and experiences of digital citizenship through project-based learning in a teacher institution in Indonesia. A case study research design was employed using content analysis to analyze the data from semi-structured interviews, observation, and daily journal report. The results showed that technology overuse requires moral guidance in terms of digital citizenship. The student-teachers viewed that digital citizenship provides some principles that encompass knowledge, skills, and appropriate behavior to use technology safely and responsibly. They asserted that digital citizenship is a necessary skill for prospective teachers, particularly considering the growing demand for schools to develop character education programs that address the topic of student technology use. After engaging in digital-issue-driven project-based learning, the student-teachers opined that project-based learning will be beneficial to learners’ autonomy engagement in constructing an understanding of the digital world. Project-based learning also provides opportunities for learners to advance and grow digital skills that are relevant to the 21st century within a real-world context. This study has implications for educators, school principals, and policymakers in ensuring that youths access curricula at all grade levels for them to be able to show appropriate and responsible behavior in both online and offline environments.

Online project-based learning for teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review

“…It can be seen that the number of studies conducted in 2020 is very low compared to 2021 and 2022; this may be the impact of the disruption of educational activities in countries during the period when the COVID-19 pandemic took place most explosively. However, after a certain adaptation period and to meet the learning needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, online PjBL studies have been accelerated in the years 2021-2023 (Paristiowati et al, 2022;Poonpon, 2021;Prasetiyo et al, 2023;Rusmini et al, 2021;Schina et al, 2021;Tsybulsky & Muchnik-Rozanov, 2023;Yustina et al, 2020).…”

“…For students, the main challenges are related to skills in using information technology to access information resources and implement projects (Aksela & Haatainen, 2019;Al Mulhim, 2022;Alromaih et al, 2022;Chung & Li, 2021), and authentic challenges such as the abilities to execute the research steps (Al-Busaidi & Al-Seyabi, 2021), focus on project participation (Alromaih et al, 2022), and the time management skills (Aksela & Haatainen, 2019;Kamali Arslantas & Kocaoz, 2021;Nava & Park, 2021). During the COVID-19 period, on the other hand, both teachers and students are under great pressure, and limited technology skills, inconvenient online communication, project time constraints, and inexperienced management skills have delayed their work (Poonpon, 2021;Prasetiyo et al, 2023), are also significant difficulties for the implementation of PjBL. In addition, implementing teaching strategies such as PjBL also requires investing financial resources, references, tools, and devices for educational institutions, teachers and students (Alromaih et al, 2022).…”

“…Sustainable practices and policies should be developed to promote green attitudes at university and higher education institutions and to favor the acquisition of sustainable management models to generate sustainable ways of thinking by learners (Gutiérrez et al, 2006;as cited in Hernández-Barco et al, 2021). According to Prasetiyo et al (2023), PjBL is an instructional strategy to foster digital citizenship competencies in student-teachers. Research by the authors Tsybulsky and Muchnik-Rozanov (2021) and Tsybulsky and Oz (2019) also shows that learning with PjBL affects pre-service teachers' beliefs and positive attitudes about the ability to use PjBL in future teaching.…”

“…Many studies have shown that social networking platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook (Chung & Li, 2021) and online learning platforms such as Google Classroom, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Zoom (Anggito et al, 2021;Paristiowati et al, 2022) are effective for the online PjBL implementation in teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, Prasetiyo et al (2023) believe online PBL can promote digital citizenship competencies among teachers and students. Through a PjBL, studentteachers are motivated to seek out and validate information citizens, thereby developing into informed and active (Prasetiyo et al, 2023).…”

“…Accordingly, Prasetiyo et al (2023) believe online PBL can promote digital citizenship competencies among teachers and students. Through a PjBL, studentteachers are motivated to seek out and validate information citizens, thereby developing into informed and active (Prasetiyo et al, 2023). The need to investigate and improve the quality of the application of PjBL has prompted a variety of studies conducted across different subjects of teacher education to examine the implementation of PjBL, its effectiveness, and the various challenges that PjBL poses to educators, pre-service teachers and institutions.…”