Define and Elicit Digitial Citizenship
As students become more inundated with personal learning devices, such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops, it is the job of all educators to prepare them with a basic understanding of what it means to be a good digital citizen. Digital citizenship seems to be a varied idea of what it may all entail. Mike Ribble, in his book Digital Citizenship in Schools, defines it as the “appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use” (2015, p. 19). Common Sense Education presents digital citizenship as a student's ability in critical thinking, and safe and responsible digital behavior (9 -12 Introduction to digital citizenship, n.d.). Diana Benner referred to Digizen, in her TCEA Convention and Exposition session, to describe digital citizenship as a way to build safe spaces and communities with being internet savvy and using online presence beneficially (2015). As these descriptions show there are multiple focuses on what it means to be a good digital citizen. Riddle breaks digital citizenships into 9 elements (access, commerce, communication, literacy, etiquette, law, rights and responsibilities, health and wellness, and security) (2015) that could encompass each of these stated definitions. I take digital citizenship as the ethical and empathetic behavior of one’s online activities that can affect both the digital and non-digital presence, impacts and interactions of others and self.
Above I stated that it is the duty of all educators to train and develop students in proper digital citizenship. An underlying goal of education is to develop good citizens of one’s country, but as the economies and interactions have become more global, to the digitization of these, educators should be charged with making good global, digital citizens. Also, educators can see this as a reality when given the task to “Google yourself”. The findings may be surprising to them and their students. Doing more advanced searches, with specific keywords and details, a lot of information can be found of one’s online presence. Finally, to garner the support for this type of education, relating the teaching of digital citizenship as the prevention of harassment of and safety of their students. 15.5% of students reported some sort of electronic bullying, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015(C., 2016). These types of harassments must be reported because of educators code of ethics and extends to the cyber world.
The benefit of teaching about online safety and digital citizenship is there a number of valuable resources to learn about this topic. To educate both other educators and then to help them teach their students I would offer the following resources.
Common Sense Education This site prevents information to teachers, students, and parents. They look at digital citizenship as a community form of understanding. Simple videos, presentations, and information are presented to explain and understand the topic. Certification in digital citizenship is available as well. Those resources can be found here https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship.
International Society for Technology in Education The society has many great articles and resources to learn and teach about digital citizenship. The newly developed standards take digital citizenship to the forefront of learning. An example of one of these articles is “9 resources for teaching digital citizenship”. This article covers a lot of the resources that ISTE and others provide.
United States Department of Education Using case study as the basis of learning can look at what works and what didn’t. The US DOE has multiple studies listed of various approaches to teaching digital citizenship. The archives for digital citizenship can be found at this link https://tech.ed.gov/stories/characteristics/urban/.
Texas Computer Educators Association Technotes Blog This Texas based, educational technology association posts resources, ideas, and training events concerning multiple items, including digital citizenship. Those blog post with digital citizenship in mind can be found here https://www.tcea.org/blog/tag/digital-citizenship/.
Eanes ISD Digital Parenting Course A course developed for the parents of Eanes ISD, Eanes, TX, is now a public iTunes U course. This course commits to presenting resources, projects, and information to help parents understand what digital tools are available to their students and what is the best way to protect students. The course is free and available in iTunes U course catalog here https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/eanes-isd-digital-parenting-course/id868356158.
References
9-12 Introduction to digital citizenship | Common Sense Media. (n.d.). Retrieved September 02, 2017, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/training/9-12/introduction-to-digital-citizenship
Benner, D. (2015, January 28). Digital citizenship: Keeping students safe online - TCEA 2015. Retrieved September 02, 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/diben/digital-citizenship-keeping-students-safe-online-tcea-2015?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fmj89sp3sau2k7lj1eg3k40hkeppguj6j-a-sites-opensocial.googleusercontent.com%2Fgadgets%2Fifr%3Furl&container=enterprise&view=default&lang=en&country=ALL&sanitize=0&v=6b2bcaf81110da56&libs=core&mid=172&parent=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fdbennerorg%2Fpresentations%2Ftcea-2015%2Fdigital-citizenship-keeping-students-safe-online.
C. (2016). Youth risk behavior surveillance, United States 2015 (6th ed., Vol. 65, Rep.). Retrieved September 2, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2015/ss6506_updated.pdf.
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: nine elements all students should know. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
