Blog Post #5

I feel like if I look back on my schooling and the emphasis we had on “cyber safety” and digital citizenship it was very minimal. I felt we were given the same presentation each year that discusses how you should act on the interest, what is appropriate to post/not post, and overall, the expectations of using technology within a school environment. Most of the time the techniques the school I was at used scare tactics and a basic presentation, as well as posted flyers around the school outlining what we discussed in the presentations. The scare tactics that were normally used were bringing in a resource officer to give presentations on cyberbullying and how to be safe on the internet and different forms of technology. Overall, when I look back on my schooling, we did not have enough discussion on cyber safety and digital citizenship. In my opinion, these techniques weren’t effective, and students would continue cyberbullying each other or using unsafe resources for research. I think that a simple presentation with a resource officer does not teach students cyber safety and digital citizenship, I feel students need to be trained in how to use technology, directly shown the right from wrong ways, and participate in cyber safety and having digital citizenship. I think for students to see exactly what they need to be doing, and have a first-hand hands-on experience. These are just my thoughts though, I bet there are tons of strategies, methods, and techniques to educate students on cyber safety, and what it means to have digital citizenship.  I think in my future classroom, I will incorporate the 9 elements of digital citizenship into my classroom in a variety of ways. I will ensure students always have access to technology when they need it for research, and that technology will be incorporated into my lesson plans and at different times throughout the day. I also feel like starting to educate students at a young age about these concepts can make a huge difference throughout their education and experiences with the digital world. I know from even working in a daycare setting that many kids are starting to get phones at young ages but do not know how to safely use them. So, I think educators teaching them about cyber safety and showing them what it means to have digital citizenship at a young age can be beneficial. Overall, I think that there are many ways to have the 9 elements of digital citizenship in your classroom.