Future-Ready Classrooms : Digital Citizenship in Education
Digital citizenship has become more and more important to implement into classrooms and educate students on how to understand it. For me I think the easiest way to approach it in my future classroom is to focus on core areas like online safety, cyberbullying and privacy. This way they aren’t getting too much dropped on them to fast on digital citizenship. In the future I’m sure digital citizenship will be put into the curriculum at an even younger age with the way technology is going. The best way to stress the importance of this is by making interactive activities for students to learn and discuss.
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Teaching about hacking and how to behave online plays a big part as well with almost all age groups. With many students nowadays they have very easy access to all things internet which can be helpful but can also potentially be an issue if they are not taught to use it properly.
From my own personal experience, even when I was just in high school I remember that often students would use a lot of technology inappropriately and it would end up causing stress and bad reputations for my kids. A lot of the time involves some bullying and peer pressure to post things they shouldn’t be. While there were many situations with incidents like that happening we definitely had some presentations to warn us on how to present ourselves online. With that being only a few years ago it has gotten even worse as kids are so normalized to have personal phones at an even younger age. Freshly starting in middle years almost every student has a phone now which is a huge change even just when I was in middle years. It’s slowly getting worse and worse so implementing the ways we teach how to be a good citizen online at the earliest would help prevent as many students going through awful situations online.
From the article by Digital Citizenship in Saskatchewan Schools – Policy Planning Guide it shows and explains all the 9 elements and why we should worry about digital citizenship. Those elements being:
- Digital etiquette
- Digital access
- Digital law
- Digital communication
- Digital literacy
- Digital commerce
- Digital rights and responsibilities
- Digital health and wellness
- Digital security
Each of these elements in the article were explained in detail and gave a good understanding of why digital citizenship is so important. In the article it states in element 7 that digital rights and responsibilities are the “privileges” and “freedoms” inherent in participation in society as well as the expectations that come with them.
Having the freedom to express what we feel online is a big thing when engaging in digital spaces. We are all able to share thoughts, opinions and content that we chose to put on the internet. Since there is so much that can be shared it’s important to have respect for others and ensure a safe, ethical and fair space on digital spaces.
There are so many elements shared in the article all playing a big part on why we all have to be safe online including legalities being involved which happens in many cases when involved with nude content or sexting between students that gets out of hand. In conclusion it’s so important to create a safe place to discuss and teach on digital citizenship as it’s such a big part of our everyday lives and will continue to become more involved as years go on.
Hi Olivia,
You bring up an incredibly important and relatable point about the challenges students face with technology and social media. It is scary how normalized it’s become for even young kids to have phones. The peer pressure to post things they shouldn’t, can escalate bullying and create toxic environments that are hard to escape. It is important to educate students on how to understand the interpret the online world around them.
Hi Olivia! I like how you mentioned not wanting to overload them with information about digital citizenship too fast. So much could be talked about, but the last thing you want is for it to seem like a lecture or a long list of what not to do online. I agree that “the best way to stress the importance of this is by creating interactive activities for students to learn and discuss.” That was a big takeaway for me, too!