Digital Citizenship

What is Digital Citizenship?

Digital Citizenship is knowing how to be responsible and appropriate online.  It is all about making good decisions when interacting with the web.  BUT...  How do we learn how to be good digital citizens?  Who teaches this concept?  How is this concept taught? 

Although it should not be solely the responsibility of school to teach about good digital citizenship, it does fall heavily on the schools, especially when the kids are using technology and online resources as part of their education.  If technology is a part of our classrooms, so is the obligation to teach our students how to do it safely, responsibly, and appropriately.  I know at my school, we had five school wide digital citizenship lessons that were presented to all students before passing out iPads to each individual student in the school.  It was an effort to make sure all students knew the dangers that are present when using online resources and to teach them how to look for those dangers and how to avoid those dangers. 

Why is it important?

To teach digital citizenship is as important as teaching our content area, in my opinion.  What do kids do in their free time?  They play online games, they cruise youtube, they Google random topics.  All of these things can present opportunities to get themselves in trouble.  All of these websites have ads, which the kids have no control over, that are trying to grab their attention, get them to click on a different website, and possibly trick them.  They also have opportunities to purchase items with questionable reputations.  Kids need to be aware of these things before they discover them themselves. 

They need to know that not all things are good; not all websites are good; not all offers are good.  We are all fascinated by what our students can do with their devices, and now we have to make them aware of what other people can do with these technological devices.  Information and even pictures can be stolen, your location can be found, and tricking people is an everyday occurrence on the internet.  We want our students to be safe and responsible.  This is where digital citizenship lessons come in to our classrooms.

Digital Citizenship Lessons

There are many resources out there that can be used to teach these lessons.  Mike Ribble wrote an article that is now posted on www.ISTE.org about the acronym REP that helps students remember proper behavior online.  Respect, Educate and Protect are three words that kids can easily remember, using this acronym.  Vicki Davis wrote an article on www.edutopia.org that introduces the "Nine P's of Digital Citizenship."  They are: Passwords, Privacy, Personal Information, Photographs, Property, Permission, Protection, Professionalism, and Personal Brand. 

Teachinctrl.org has lessons already created for teachers to use.  The video designed for students talks about how kids spend 458 minutes using media every day.  It introduces the rights and responsibilities of being online.  It talks about being kind to one another while still having the right to free speech.  Students need to be smart, fair, and considerate.

Reflections on Teaching Digital Citizenship

Although teaching Digital Citizenship in the classroom might take time away from the content area, it is extremely important.  We need to be proactive about this knowledge for our students.  As all other lessons that we teach in order to be proactive, it takes time, but it is definitely worth it in the end.  We do it because we care about our students; we do it because we want the best for our students.