My definition of digital citizenship is the actions taken or ignored by individuals who participate in a digital society. It is important to teach and model digital citizenship to students in the classroom from an early age to create empowered and insightful digital citizens in our younger generations.
Digital citizenship is to the digital world what citizenship is to the physical world. Those actions must take into consideration the norms and expectations of the given society. Each person living in that society must choose what actions to take, if any, in given situations. These actions must take into consideration the emotional, physical, and financial health of both the person in question and any other person that may be affected by the actions or lack thereof.
In the same way that we must learn the social norms of our local community and abide by them, we should also learn the norms of our digital community in order to abide by them as well. If one believes that someone can have poor citizenship, you must also believe that one can have poor digital citizenship. Each can affect the other and can bleed from the digital world to the physical world and the other way around. One must be careful to intentionally make decisions that will form your digital citizenship in a way that is desired.
According to Mike Ribble, digital citizenship can be broken into nine elements which can further be divided into three categories and principles. (2015) The elements are digital access, digital commerce, digital communication, digital literacy, digital etiquette digital law, digital rights and responsibilities, digital health and wellness, and digital security. (2015) Many of these principles relate to each other because without one, the other cannot be as strong. For example, without being technology literate, one would have a difficult time discerning whether a website was reputable to purchase something from. This could affect both the commerce and security principles.
Digital health and wellness is one element that I believe is particularly important to our students, school, and district. The physical and emotional health of our students is extremely important. My school is a one-campus district and we have limited devices for students to use. There is no training for teachers on how to use the technology in the classroom. I have personally seen students using iPads and chromebooks in body positions that I would not consider safe or even comfortable. Teachers sometimes think more about the safety of the device than the student who is using it. I have also heard many students talk about playing video games at home for hours on end and well past a reasonable bedtime. This not only creates the potential for technology addiction, but it also cuts into valuable sleeping time for them. Sleep is vital to a student's ability to learn and grow in class and in any part of life.
I think that creating an informative session for parents about proper physical and mental health when it comes to technology would help this issue for our school. Our parents are, in general, very proactive when they know what kinds of things to look for. This is an issue, though, that is largely overlooked and not considered to be a problem. I also think that before teachers check out technology for their classroom for the school year, they should attend a similar session that focuses more on physical health of students using technology. This could be in person or a video created with a quiz like compliance videos that we all complete.
Learning is a two-way street: teachers and students need to model being both learners and teachers in the classroom (Curran, 2012). From my studies and from my own personal experience, I can attest that this conclusion is absolutely correct. In her writings about Growth Mindset, Carol Dweck asserts that one must not be afraid to fail and that learning is constant (2106). You are NEVER going to know everything. By understanding this, it makes failure less stressful. When we teach this to our students, they can become more resilient. When we model it by learning along with them, it becomes a powerful learning experience for everyone.
George Couros talks about how impactful learning alongside students can be for them and for teachers (2015). From personal experience over the last 2 school years working with students on genius hour projects, I can attest to the accuracy of this. I have watched student interest in crafts become an online business. I have witnessed a 13-year-old create her own video game. I have seen students create books, study animals, and design furniture. One of the key elements was that teachers were creating things as well! Seeing that adults don’t stop learning when they hit a given age or achieve a degree or diploma inspires students to dream big and look into things they are interested in.
Teaching 21st century students to be productive digital citizens is important to their education and the future of our digital world. One cannot expect students to inherently know what is and is not acceptable, and many things have changed since their parents were in school, so it is up to the educators to do this.
References:
Couros, G. (2015). The innovators mindset: empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture of creativity. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.
Curran, M. (2012, June). iCitizen: Are you a socially responsible digital citizen. Paper presented at the International Society for Technology Education Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX. Retrieved from (PDF: icitizen_paper_M_Curran.pdf )
Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: the new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books.
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: nine elements all students should know.
Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
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