Teaching our Future Students about their Digital Citizenships

June 3, 2021 0 By Gledi Toci

When I hear the word Citizenship, I think about getting my Canadian Citizenship again. That was simple enough but understanding our Digital Citizenships has a larger impact on us. Technology is everywhere around us as the PennState blog acknowledges. We have to learn our 9 elements of our Digital Citizenship and teach the importance of it to our students.

265-365 (Year 7)Digital citizenship
“265-365 (Year 7)Digital citizenship” by ♔ Georgie R is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

In Canada, we are privileged to our freedom rights which are by law protecting us, however, in the internet world, it is much different. With technology, many individuals can hide behind a screen and say, do, sell, support anything they would like. These things could be harmful, discriminating, or illegal in some cases. Being said though, the internet does allow for many good opportunities, but knowing how to use it and be safe is important. With the internet being such a big part of our lives, as future teachers, we need to learn how to safely integrate it into our teaching.

Who's Right?
“Who’s Right?” by Viewminder is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

As a future physical education 20/30 teacher, I took a look at the outcomes and indicators and related them to the nine elements of digital citizenship. Begin by looking at outcomes (Lifelong Fitness- PE30.2 and Nutrition- PE30.7), and their relation to digital fluency. To encourage students to participate lifelong in fitness, I as future a teacher will teach them about the things they might experience and see on the internet to impact that. To begin with when participating in lifelong fitness students will see many things related to fitness, which many could have false information. If a student’s goal is to become a bodybuilder, or a really fit athlete he might see a false advertisement online on foods he should not eat, or pills he should take which could harm his body. Therefore I will be doing my job as an educator to teach the legitimacy on many websites and ads.

A big part of the Physical Education curriculum is the outcome (Complex Skills, Tactics, and Strategies- PE30.5). When I focus on this outcome, I think it will be smart to allow students to use the internet to learn such skills in their own time, or in class. Therefore I would have to be aware of the digital access students might have when assigning the assignment. Knowing what each student’s digital access is like and finding solutions for students without internet access is important. Considering an indicator within this outcome is designing a plan to teach a skill, this is where the use of technology could help design it with such ease.

Overall all aspects of digital citizenship will become important in almost all classrooms at all grades. With so many individuals having access to the internet and having social media accounts, we as teachers need to help them safely be a part of them. While still using social media to teach, and implementing it into our learning and curriculum.

Internet Safety
“Internet Safety” by raynaynae is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0