Reading Jason Ohler’s “Character Education for the Digital Age,” and Nathan Jurgenson’s “The IRL Fetish,” got me thinking about a few things regarding digital citizenship in my life. First, how I am as a digital citizen in today’s era, how I incorporate and teach digital citizenship in the classroom to the future leaders of the world, and how students use technology outside of the classroom when there is no one to them hovering over them. Reading these articles made me think that teaching digital citizenship in the classroom requires some trust between teacher and students. Trusting them to use what they have learned in their everyday lives. Having the goal as not to scare them – “Anything you post online will be there forever and can be seen by anyone!” – But to acknowledge this large aspect in students’ lives and try to teach safety and caution behind it. 

As Jason Ohler talks about whether to teach students one life or two, one being where school is separate from technology used at home, and the other being the opposite, I began to think about my own school experience with technology. I think there were definitely some teachers throughout my schooling teaching the unplugged version as Ohler puts it. Not integrating the fast moving technology everyone began to use. I do believe there are still some teachers teaching this way in our school system, but I have begun to notice many teachers using the “one life” approach in their classrooms as a substitute teacher. This digital integration seems to occur more in the middle years and high school grades, but I am able to see this integration begin in early elementary classes as well. Whether it’s incorporating an iPad into a working rotation, using the classroom smart board, or having students use the internet, this is still a part of growing digital citizenship. I think this article is important so that teachers understand that even if this “one life” as Ohler describes is unfamiliar to you, lots of the time it is the only life students know. 

In comparison to Jurgenson’s article, instead of stressing the need to integrate this digital citizenship, it is stressed that students need to put their devices away. I liked this article because it discussed lots of points that I think about on a day to day basis. Do I spend too much time on my phone? Should I delete my social media accounts? Am I making the most out of life when I am constantly thinking about this device in my pocket? For me, I think it’s hard to balance the “In real life” debate Jurgenson discusses in this article. When I see young kids obsessed with devices, it makes me sad that they don’t experience the get out and play lifestyle that I grew up with, but I think that is also something that needs to be taught to the “one lifers”. The balance between online and offline, and the space between. 

It is really interesting that it isn’t until grade 4 that students are asked to view and respond to visual and multimedia texts on websites in the ELA outcomes in the Saskatchewan curriculum. With the points discussed in Ohler’s and Jurgenson’s articles, we almost see similarities to the “two life” lifestyle Ohler is describing where kids are offline until they get home in grades K-4. The reality is as we connect to Jurgenson’s article, students aren’t really offline at school no matter what grade they are in. I’ve seen technology used in many ways in classroom K-4. Whether it’s using iPads during a daily 5 station or using a Smartboard for lessons, that is still exposing students to technology at school. Although the curriculum doesn’t specifically say to incorporate technology into the classroom in any grade, most likely it is and that is when teachers need to be aware of how students are demonstrating digital citizenship. As the Digital Citizenship article we read in class discusses the 9 elements to digital citizenship, teachers need to be aware of how they are going to teach and incorporate these learnings into integrating any sort of technology into the classroom. Although the curriculum provides very little guidance in teaching these topics, I think teachers should be using a cross-curricular approach to get their messages across. What comes to mind when thinking about how to teach digital citizenship in the classroom, is connecting it to the Health Decision Making outcomes. Teachers can easily plan some digital citizenship lessons surrounding this outcome. Since the curriculum does leave out digital citizenship, I think that planning different lessons hitting different outcomes in different subjects is necessary to teach this topic in schools.