I decided to focus on the digital citizenship in grade 8. My first thought was to look Health Education. After a quick glance and not seeing anything directly related to digital citizenship I looked at Career Education and Social Studies. At this point I realized that digital citizenship is something that does not have its own goal, outcome or set of indicators.
I believe that digital citizenship would be best taught in Health Education. Looking at the existing curriculum I think that digital citizenship best fits under outcome USC 8.4 and 8.5. Both outcomes have indicators reflecting experiences one might have on the internet. USC 8.5 indicator A focuses on body issues which many teenagers struggle with.
In an ideal, world digital citizenship would have its outcome and set of indicators. Technology is becoming such an important part of our world and we often don’t realize or understand the impacts that the internet can have on youth. A common example we use is teaching students how to send an email. We often say it is like writing a letter, but the younger generation has never needed to send a letter. If we’re teaching students how to properly write an email, shouldn’t we be teaching them about other sources in the internet?
I am a firm believer that we need to teach students how to navigate the internet safely. Telling them to stay off the internet won’t be effective. Technology is so apart of our world today and it is not possible to just “stay off the internet.” It is vital that students, as well as the elderly and everyone in between know how to use the internet safely. The internet can be used for many great things, let’s just make sure that it does not get abused by the wrong person.
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