Essential Question: What traits should teachers emphasize to help students become good digital citizens?
“2a - Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.
2b - Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
2c - Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
2d - Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online” (2016).
Digital citizenship skills are essential to a 21st century education. According to Common Sense Education, all students need to be taught these skills in order “to participate fully in their communities and make smart choices online and in life” (2020). Our students are growing up in a world that is very different from the one we grew up in. “Devices, social networks, and media are changing childhood in radical ways” (Common Sense, 2020). It is so important that we teach our students how to behave appropriately while using the rapidly changing technology they have instant access to. “Modeling and helping students learn about Internet safety is the responsibility of every adult in our students' lives, including teachers in all subject areas and parents at home” (Teachers First, n.d.).
In order to decide what we should emphasize in order to create good digital citizens, I went straight to the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Standard for Students. The digital citizenship standards are as follows:
2b - Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
2c - Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
2d - Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online” (2016).
Digital citizenship is often confused with online safety, but it is much more than that. According to ISTE CEO Richard Culatta there are four main ideas we should be teaching our students in addition to online safety. They are “using technology to make your community better, engaging respectfully online with people who have different beliefs than you, using technology to make your voice heard by public leaders and to shape public policy, and determining the validity of online sources of information” (ISTE, 2018).
I also want to share this poster that can be downloaded from the ISTE website and posted in the classroom. 
And here is my personal journey thus far.
Resources:
Common Sense Education. (2020). Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/
Common Sense Education. (2020). Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/
ISTE. [ISTE]. (2018, October 11). Rethinking digital citizenship [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwKTYHBG5kk
ISTE Standards for Students. (2016). Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students
Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2020, from https://www.teachersfirst.com/spectopics/safety.cfm
Good sources and discussion. There are still many students whose first exposure to technology connected to the internet is at school. And since that technology is beginning to be used more and more to help students learn. It is increasingly becoming the school's job to help students become digital citizens and to understand what that means.
ReplyDeleteI particularily appreciated the ISTE resource and the idea that we should be
ReplyDeleteUsing technology to:
make community better,
engaging respectfully online with people who have different beliefs than you,
be heard by public leaders and to shape public policy,
determining the validity of online sources of information (ISTE, 2018)
Of these, the idea that we should learn how to engage responsibly online with people different from us -- really appealed to the counselor in me.