Navigating Our Digital World

Digital Citizenship is something I have never heard about before, but I wish I had. Technology and a digital world are becoming more and more common. Our world is becoming more and more dominated by technology so understanding digital citizenship is very very important. 

When I was growing up I didn’t use a computer for school until high school and I also didn’t have a cell phone until grade 8. Nowadays I know kids who have cellphones as young as 8 and most kids in classrooms have personal laptops. This is why teaching digital citizenship is even more important now.

Unfortunately there isn’t just a class teaching about technology and digital citizenship (Yet!). However, if you think creatively you can find ways to implement it in what you are already teaching.

Grade 6 outcome RW6.1 –Examine and analyze factors that contribute to quality of life, including material and non-material factors, Would give students a chance to learn about digital access. Although our world is becoming dominantly digital there isn’t always access to technology. You could use this outcome to discuss how something like Wi-Fi, computers, cellphones, and internet are not accessible for everyone. You could look at it in a large perspective by talking about how on the other side of the world laptops aren’t accessible in some schools. You could also look at it in a smaller perspective and talk about how farm kids might not have access to sufficient internet compared to city kids.

Another aspect of digital citizenship that you could integrate into the Saskatchewan curriculum is digital communication and collaboration. In outcome CC5.4 it discusses students creating letters. This could be the perfect time to learn about emailing. I remember in Elementary school I had a penpal and we had to hand write letters and snail mail them to our penpal! It was really enjoyable, but the reality is that snail mail is becoming obsolete. You could do the same sort of thing using email instead and also get to touch on digital communication. You can teach about being careful who you are sending messages to, not sharing private information, and also just basic skills of emailing.

Digital citizenship is something that everyone should learn about and we shouldn’t wait till University to learn it and understand it.