Digital Citizenship and the 9 Elements

Upon learning about the 9 elements of digital citizenship, I felt it important that everyone should know especially the next generation. Since I am a secondary education student I thought it best to really think about teaching it to grades nine through twelve. It is obvious by now that technology and cell phones are not going anywhere, so I feel it is best to go forward with integrating them into the classroom and teaching students how to use them effectively and efficiently in and out of school. I have personally experienced the strategy of completely banning cellphones from the classroom and I can tell you it did not work. All it did was make students more sneaky and creative. Since it is not going anywhere and becoming more and more prevalent every day we must learn to teach with phones and technology as our allies, not our enemies. If we can embrace that in the classroom we can properly prepare students for their inevitable digital citizenship. Students are going to be on the internet and they are going to participate in different cultures, interests, sites, and trends. With the unlimited capabilities of the internet, we must teach them how to use technology appropriately.

When thinking about how I will teach digital citizenship I can think of a couple of ways. One, I want students to understand the benefits of being a digital citizen. It’s not all scary like we were taught. I don’t want to scare students out of discovering the internet. I want to help guide them to safe access and proper representation of themselves on the internet. Second, I see how I could teach it through math. Looking at things through the lens of math can help us gain different perspectives on topics and obtain new information.

When I am teaching about digital citizenship in the classroom, I want to make sure the why is understood. Students should know why it is important to use technology responsibly. In the past the why has been shown as all negative things. You should be safe on the internet because of creeps etc. It was always scare tactics. Instead, I want to show why it’s important because of all the good things that come from it. Just like we are taught to be good citizens of our community because of the good things that happen, we should be taught to be good citizens of the online community because of all the good things that happen. The internet is not going anywhere and day by day everyone is becoming more involved online, so being properly prepared to exist online is crucial. Understanding why we must properly exist online is just as crucial.

Furthermore, since I specialize in math, I think it only makes sense that I teach about digital citizenship and the 9 elements of digital citizenship through math. In a similar style to how critical math uses math to relay messages and teachings about injustices, I could teach about digital citizenship in a comparable style. This way I can build up students’ math abilities and empower their online presence at the same time. Math is everywhere and I could find connections between the 9 elements and mathematics. For certain there would be statistics. Upon seeing the information, I can create a lesson plan that would include discovering this information together as a class. By using math and concepts that the students are familiar with they can then see the importance and impact of the information. Rather than just giving them the information and hoping they understand, let them be in charge of their own discoveries and then they mean that much more.

As mentioned in the article, Character Education for the Digital Age, if we truly want our students to be part of a greater society and to be better than we are, then we need to teach them to be in tune with being online. They need to find that balance between the instant empowerment of the internet and the sense of community and responsibility in local life. As teachers, it is our responsibility to help guide the students to this point. If we shun the use of technology and block it from being learned from and grown from in the classroom, all we are doing is sending students to discover everything on their own without any proper guidance. We must use what we know to help students grow in the digital world as well as the physical since those are becoming more and more intertwined each day.