Digital Citizenship

"It is our responsibility as educators to teach our students how to manage, maintain and highlight their digital integrity. Just blocking tools does not teach them anything."

Andrew Marcinek said this at the workshop on Digital Citizenship that I attended during the Christa McAuliffe Tech Conference last month.  He spoke eloquently about "empowerment" over "acceptable use" and how we are "preparing students for their future, not our past." Students are creating their digital reputation from the minute they pick up a device or log into a computer. He pointed out that students use their devices to stay connected, so they don't feel alone, fulfilling a basic human instinct to seek each other out and create personal links. He reminded us that tech devices began with family TVs and are now very personal.

Clay Shirky, a writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies, says we can and should embrace this because “this linking together in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about. In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching television, but our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.” 

Digital Citizenship skills are transferable; they work in the real world as well as the virtual world.  The digital citizenship rules our students have been learning include:

• Use good netiquette: never be mean, rude or unkind to others online. (Be polite to others)
• Never chat, email or text with someone you don't know. (Don't talk to strangers)
• Don't give out your personal information like your birthdate, phone number, address or password.
• If something or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, sad or unsafe, tell a trusted adult.

You can see how these rules translate to basic personal safety.  But it is imperative that our students learn that these rules are as important in the virtual world as they are in the real world. 

I have been teaching Digital Citizenship lessons to each of our first and second grade classes this year. What do YOU think?  I welcome your comments on Digital Citizenship. 

For more information, check out these websites:

Netsmartz and Commonsense Media

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 "

Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America 2013", 

Commonsense Media: A Common Sense Research Study, October 28, 2013, 

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/zero-to-eight-childrens-media-use-in-america-2013