The phrase "digital citizenship" might sound like a deviant robot running for political office, but it actually holds a significant amount of weight and value within school systems and throughout learning communities.
Digital citizenship can be defined as:
the responsible use of technology by anyone who uses computers, the Internet, and digital devices to engage with society on any level.
Several well-respected organizations support the education of reinforcing and instilling stronger digital citizenship skills within students. A few of these include: Edutopia, Applied Educational Systems (AES), DQ Institute, Common Sense Education, and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
School communities have a few heavy-hitter topics surrounding the idea of digital citizenship. Below, we will explore a few together.
Data Protection
Every school should have a strong safeguarding plan in place for keeping students safe both physically and digitally. This might begin by making a mission statement and continue through to the creation of a whole child safeguarding team.
What teaching about the importance of data protection might look like for:
Elementary: explaining and practicing the importance of creating a strong password
Middle School: understanding how companies collect and use personal data
High School: discovering the impact digital footprints, cookies, and tracking
Teachers: ensuring all student data is securely held in confidence
Parents: reminding of the school security measures in place to protect student data
Administration: designing, maintaining, and upgrading the network infrastructure
Positive Practices
Strengthening digital citizenship skills can happen anytime, anywhere. Great practice would be for students to play GAMES at home to practice and hone their digital literacy and citizenship skills. Some online games that can be played anywhere include:
- For young students:
Privacy Pirates by MediaSmarts
- For teens:
Be Internet Awesome by Google
DigCit Escape Room on Elementari
Video quizzes and Cybersecurity Lab game by PBS
These are GREAT learning materials for families to play together! Online protection and data security conversations can easily happen both at school and at home.
Curriculum Awareness
Whether teachers realize it or not, they are already educating students about digital citizenship! Educators are role models for these skills and students are definitely watching and learning, even indirectly.
- When educators cite their sources, they are demonstrating responsible use ethics.
- When an educator helps a student change their password after a friend spammed the account, they are teaching about the importance of digital privacy and security.
- When an educator shows students how to find reliable internet sources for their research paper, they are explaining how to evaluate the credibility and relevance of information and media online.
One way an information technology coach can strengthen upon this learning foundation would be to speak with the school counselor about incidents pertaining to online or digital media concerns. For example, if students are experiencing increased plagiarism warnings this year, then a focus could shift to fill in these knowledge gaps.
Digitally Safe Communities
Safety online begins as soon as students have access to iPads or begin learning to type! Technology agreements can be sent home for families to discuss and sign at the beginning of each new school year. This is a great reminder of the importance of technology safety and can help with the creation of a family tech use plan at home. Here is an example of a family technology plan.
Each grade level within a school can strengthen their digital citizenship skills in scaffolded ways. Easy lessons by grade can be incorporated for relevance. This progression chart can also be helpful to see if students are ahead or behind in their progressive digital citizenship learning journey.
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