Digital Citizenship

Without consultation, those responsible for the world wide web in which we find ourselves trapped have bequeathed to 21st-century students the title of “Digital Citizens.”  

This unsolicited inheritance comes with the following drawbacks:

• Students are vulnerable to having their data mined.  Their data is the product that most free online sites and services are selling.
• Bullying is rampant online among students.  Social media is like building a brick wall between two people so that they have to shout over it to communicate.  People become emboldened by this brick wall because if they say something rude, the person on the other side can’t punch them.  I suppose that if one was angry, then one could simply walk around the wall, but if this wall is so inconvenient, then why did we build the wall in the first place?
• Students aren’t listening to what the teacher is saying because they’re all checking their phones and other mobile devices.
  
  

The implication is that teachers must help their students to become responsible and ethical digital citizens.

7 Humble Suggestions and Thoughts to Share with Your Class:

1. Set Some Ground Rules: Teachers need to spend some time working with students to discuss what appropriate online behaviour looks like.
2. It’s a Tool, Not a Weapon: Cell phones and other mobile devices can be a great help in the classroom (dictionaries, research, etc), but teachers must coach and monitor students as they learn to use these tools effectively in the classroom to improve their learning.
3. It’s Not a Video-Game: We cannot simply hit the reset button when we do something we regret.  Teachers must impress upon students the permanence of what they do online.
4. Bullying is Unacceptable No Matter Where It Occurs: Bullying someone using social media is still bullying, and must be appropriately addressed and handled.
5. You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide: It’s easy for others to track what we’re doing online, and many people who don’t have our best interests at heart do so every second of every day.
6. Let’s Not Air Our Dirty Laundry: Information online can be copied and shared infinitely.  Teachers must impress upon their students that even if they think they’re communicating within a limited audience, they must assume that the information they put online is public and could be read by anyone.
7. The Future is Foggy: This technology is too new for anyone to fully understand how posting information online when you’re young is going to affect your adult life. There are already young adults who are having trouble establishing careers because of what they posted online in high school, college, or university (see CBCtv's Doc Zone, "Facebook Follies.")

Here is the link to a blog by Howard Rheingold called Netsmart, which explores “What you need to know to use social media intelligently, humanely, and mindfully.”

http://rheingold.com/netsmart/ 

Here is a link to a video by Cyberwise.org that explains what digital citizenship is and outlines some games and activities that teachers can use with their classes to explore ethical behaviour online.