Digital citizenship in the classroom
Digital citizenship is best described as “is the ability to navigate our digital environments in a way that’s safe and responsible and to actively and respectfully engage in these spaces”. I think it is important for students to start to develop their digital citizenship because in today’s world, technology and the internet are used in everyday life. Teaching students these skills gives them the tools and knowledge to navigate these online spaces safely, responsibly, and effectively. As a teacher I am going to implement digital citizenship in a variety of ways. One of these ways is by giving my learners the opportunity to evaluate information that they pick up online. I think it is incredibly important that students have the tools to be able to see the bias, credibility and reliability of online websites. This is part of our jobs as teachers to build critical thinkers and I believe this is a way for students to do this. I would also bring real-world scenarios in the classroom to guide the learning of digital citizenship. I believe bringing in real-world scenarios benefits the students because it makes the learning relevant and more understandable to these students. Once again, I would teach about digital footprint. We’ve talked about it a lot during class because of how big of a topic digital footprint is. Learning about digital footprints has had a huge impact on how I interact with these internet spaces. I think it is important that students learn about the consequences that can happen when using the internet. At the same point I think it is important that students also know the benefits that having a positive digital footprint can have. Often I think we are so worried about the negatives that we don’t let our students know about some of the positive impacts a good digital footprint can have.
9 elements of digital citizenship
My approach when considering digital access is to not expect my students to have prior knowledge on the topic. Not every kid has the ability to access the internet in their home life so there is not even a playing field for these students. I believe to teach about digital citizenship you need to start at step one. If students know about the topics there is nothing wrong with a review. I have a hard time seeing myself teaching strictly about digital commerce just because I am going to teach the elementary grades. I don’t believe the students would be ready to learn about digital commerce unless it is surface level for older grades. I think in high school the students are more prepared to learn about this topic. When teaching about digital communication and collaboration I would allow students to start experimenting with some of the tools available. Some of these tools are email, zoom, google docs, etc. When students have these apps I think developing assignments using these tools would be beneficial. As a teacher I would keep in mind my students skill level when using these apps when assigning work to be done.
When teaching about digital etiquette I would add this to my classroom rules and expectations when using tools for school work. I would also bring in real-life examples of what digital etiquette is and is not.When examining digital fluency with my students I think it would be beneficial to learn ways to understand what is real and what is fake on the internet. Like I have brought up quite a bit I believe real-life examples would be beneficial. When teaching about digital health and welfare I think it is important in using real life scenarios to show some of the consequences of social media when used in an unhealthy way. I think I would use group discussions as well as strategies to combat unhealthy habits online
When teaching about digital law I would bring in a third party to support the students’ learning. One of the resources I would use would be the school counselor. I believe we as teachers should make use of the experts that we have available.When teaching about digital rights and responsibility I would compare it being person to person. Often we see people hide behind screens and be keyboard warriors. I think it is important for students to know the have rights and responsibilities online.When teaching about security and privacy access I would use apps that are popular among students’ age range. Well going through these apps I would note certain privacy and security settings and show the benefits of turning using the features. I would also dive into the terms and conditions apps have and explain what certain parts of it means. Often people don’t even read these things so they don’t actually know what they are agreeing to.