“Should we teach our children as though they have two lives, or one?”
Jason Ohler
In the article Character Education for the Digital Age, Ohler brings up this debate of forcing children to either live two lives by creating a divide between school and personal life by keeping schools “digitally unplugged” OR live one life by integrating the digital world into schools and informing students how to be digital citizens. As educators, we need to move away from the “two lives” approach and embrace the idea of teaching students to live one life. I think one of the biggest reasons why this needs to happen is because you can never really be “offline.” Jurgenson addresses this “digital dualism” in The IRL Fetish.
“It fails to capture the plain fact that our lived reality is the result of the constant interpenetration of the online and offline. That is, we live in an augmented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physicality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the online.”
Nathan Jurgenson
Another reason I think the “one life” approach is necessary for the future is that technology just keeps getting more and more advanced and more and more children and adults are using technology more frequently. Furthermore, if teachers are going to be incorporating educational technologies into the classroom, children need to know how to properly use and interact with these technologies. You can’t just start throwing technology at them and hope for the best. Ohler addresses this in the article Character Education for the Digital Age.
“School is an excellent place to help kids become capable digital citizens who use technology not only effectively and creatively, but also responsibly and wisely. But we can only do that if we help them live one life, not two.”
JASON OHLER
Ribble has acknowledged nine elements of digital citizenship that I think will help make the “one life” approach become a reality. Furthermore, each of these nine elements contains three guiding principles of safety, savvy, and social. The nine elements are:
- Digital Access
- Digital Commerce
- Digital Communication and Collaboration
- Digital Etiquette
- Digital Fluency
- Digital Health and Welfare
- Digital Law
- Digital Rights and Responsibility
- Digital Security and Privacy
How do I see myself integrating digital citizenship in my future classroom?
As previously discusses I think that I will include the “one life” way of thinking about digital citizenship into my future classroom.
One method I think we need to move away from as educators is the “scare tactic” method. It is far outdated and generally highly ineffective. I really liked what our EDTC 300 TA Amana Brace said during one of our lectures.
“I am a big believer that edtech, digital citizenship, digital footprints and all those things shouldn’t be scary things. So, when we’re teaching this to kids. We should not be using the fear tactics, we should be encouraging them to use it out of leadership and to use it as citizenship.”
Amanda Brace
I really want to bring this mindset into my future classroom because when I was in school, teachers used the fear tactics and looking back now it really isn’t the best option out there. The shift towards this new outlook of digital citizenship and empowerment is reflected in those nine elements I discussed earlier and even in Saskatchewan specific documents such as the Digital Citizenship in Saskatchewan Schools – Policy Planning Guide and the Be Kind Online Digital Citizenship Continuum.
Another aspect of digital citizenship I want to make a conscious effort to make room for in my future classroom is integrating student’s voices and ideas to make sure we cover what matters most to that particular group of students. Ohler talked about this in his article Character Education for the Digital Age.
“Schools should explicitly invite students to participate in such efforts for three reasons: students know far more about opportunities and perils in cyberspace than most adults do; their involvement gives adults and youth a chance to talk about a world in which the two groups rarely intersect; and, like adults, students will be more committed to living up to values they develop themselves than to values imposed on them by others.”
Jason Ohler
Where do I see myself integrating digital citizenship in my future classroom?
In terms of grade levels, I think the nine principles have a place in every grade level (this idea is broken out very nicely in the Be Kind Online Digital Citizenship Continuum). More and more children have access to technology and the internet at younger and younger ages. So, it is becoming increasingly important that students are learning how to be safe and educated digital citizens at a young age and then we can continue to develop those skills and introduce new ones as they get older. Also, as educators continue to integrate technology in the classroom it is important that we are helping students understand how to properly engage with the technology.
As for subjects that connect with Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship, the first subject to come to my mind was health. While reading and looking through the various articles and resources assigned this week I noticed every document touched on the connection between children’s health and technology. So, I decided to go through the health curriculum and pull out various outcomes and indicators that I think could/should include some of the nine elements of digital citizenship.
USC2.1 Demonstrate a basic understanding of how thoughts, feelings, and actions influence health and well-being. [Digital Health & Wellbeing]
- b. Examine daily habits/routines that are healthy/unhealthy (e.g., eating breakfast/skipping breakfast, recycling/littering).
- f. Discuss the basic “cause-effect” relationship among thoughts, feelings, and actions (e.g., If I think I am smart, I will feel “content/confident” and I will try to learn. If I think I am “dumb”, I will feel sad/frustrated and I may not participate in class.).
USC2.4 Examine social and personal meanings of “respect” and establish ways to show respect for self, persons, living things, possessions, and the environment. [Digital Etiquette, Digital Communication]
- a. Develop a common understanding and use of respectful language to talk about “respect” (e.g., tone of voice, manners, behaviours).
- c. Determine how to show respect for own and other’s material possessions (e.g., ask before borrowing, put away when done using)
USC2.5 Recognize potential safety risks in community “play areas” and determine
safe practices/behaviours to identify, assess, and reduce the risks. [Digital Safety & Security]
- b. Examine expected behaviours and general safety rules in community “play areas” (e.g., parks, playground, schoolyard).
- c. Inventory personal habits with respect to safety in community play areas
- f. Discuss how safety rules/guidelines are established to reduce risks.
- g. Investigate ways to identify, assess, and reduce the risk of potentially dangerous and/or possible unsupervised situations in community “play areas”.
- i. Share the importance of practising safe behaviours in community “play areas” (i.e., one’s safety depends on the safety behaviours of others) and the possible consequences of using/not using safety knowledge and skills.
USC5.4 Analyze the connections between personal identity and personal well-being, and establish strategies to develop and support a positive self-image. [Digital Health & Wellness]
- a. Investigate knowledge and information about self-image.
- b. Discuss criteria that can be used to determine if a health source is reliable.
- c. Describe the qualities that are important in a person, regardless of their gender, culture, appearance, sexual orientation, abilities, and/ or language.
- g. Reflect on self-image as “the way you see yourself as a result of what you believe about your appearance, abilities, and character”.
- h. Discuss the influence of self and others (e.g., family expectations, family values and beliefs, culture, religion) on one’s self-image.
- i. Explore and describe what one can think, say, and do to develop and/or support a positive self-image in both self and others (e.g., recognize and refrain from derogatory comments related to any aspect of one’s self-image, challenge stereotypes, bias, and discrimination that are based on appearance and/or self-image).
USC5.6 Assess peer influence and demonstrate a readiness to prevent and/or avoid potentially dangerous situations involving peer pressure (including lying, substance use, and bullying). [Digitial Safety & Security, Digital Health & Wellness]
- a. Discuss why peers pressure each other.
- b. Ask questions and seek answers for deeper understanding (Why is peer pressure often more prevalent during adolescence than during any other time in one’s life? How and why does peer pressure change as one gets older? Why can peer pressure be so powerful? How do my thoughts, feelings, and actions influence my peers?)
- c. Examine the different levels of pressure (i.e., internal, indirect, direct).
USC5.7 Assess the importance of self-regulation and taking responsibility for one’s actions. [Digital Health & Wellness, Digital Rights & Responsibilities]
- g. Compare scenarios where individuals do/do not self-regulate and the impact on self and others.
- h. Examine the influences on self-regulation, including that which comes from adults in the environment.
- i. Determine that all choices/decisions have consequences.
- j. Analyze the rights that go along with personal responsibilities
#saskedchat advice on the matter
Questions for my readers:
What resources have you found the most helpful for integrating digital citizenship into the classroom?
Do you have any experience integrating digital citizenship into the classroom? If so do you have anything tips or things that went well that you are willing to share?
Secondly, did you have any specific training for this? In the article Character Education for the Digital Age, Ohler says “The board provides teachers with training they need to effectively address issues of digital citizenship. It empowers teachers, librarians, and school counselors to become ethical coaches to help students navigate the many ethically charged issues associated with a digital lifestyle” and I am curious to know if any training like this actually ever happens?
Leave a Reply