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The Importance of Teaching Digital Citizenship

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The Importance of Teaching Digital Citizenship

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Why Teaching Digital Citizenship Is Important

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Why Teaching Digital Citizenship Is Important

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1. Teaches safe and smart online behavior.

2.  Teaches students to know proper and improper use of digital communication.

3. Teaches students to determine what is right, both personally and professionally.

4. Teaches cyber bullying prevention.

5. Teaches digital health and wellness.

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What is a digital footprint and why is it important to know about it?

Students learn to protect their own privacy and respect others' privacy. Our digital world is permanent, and with each post, students are building a digital footprint. By encouraging students to self-reflect before they self-reveal, they will consider how what they share online can impact themselves and others. Awareness about one's own digital footprint can also help to support digital literacy.

What to Know

In a world where anything created online can be copied, pasted, and sent to thousands of people in a heartbeat, privacy starts to mean something different than simply guarding personal information. On the positive side, this culture of sharing holds tremendous promise for young people to express themselves, collaborate, and find support for their ideas and interests. However, the ease of online disclosure also poses risks for young people. A decision made in the spur of a moment - a funny picture, a certain post - can resurface years later. Something originally sent to a friend can be sent to a friend's friend, and so on. That's how secrets become headlines and how false information spreads fast and furiously - to classmates, teachers, college admissions officers, future employers, or the public at large.

Why Teach It

Help your students ...

become aware of the "digital footprint" they leave online and reflect on the kind of personal information to share about themselves, depending on the content, context, and audience.

celebrate a "culture of sharing" through digital media while considering some possible harmful effects of over-sharing and Internet privacy.

learn to respect the privacy of others online when tagging, posting, or copying other' personal information.

By guiding your students to self-reflect before they self-reveal, you can help them learn to consciously manage their own privacy online, as well as respect the privacy of others. If students aren't careful about what, how, and to whom they disclose information online, it may be used or interpreted in ways they never intended. Help them understand the public and permanent nature of the Internet so they can begin to build a positive digital presence.

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Digital Footprint & Reputation | Common Sense Education

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What is a digital footprint and why is it important to know about it? Students learn to protect their own privacy and respect others' privacy. Our digital world is permanent, and with each post, students are building a digital footprint.

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What is a digital footprint?

A digital footprint is all of the information online about a person either posted by that person or others, intentionally or unintentionally. Filling out a form, leaving a blog comment, updating your status, checking into a location, emailing or IMing a friend, posting a photo, visiting a website, using a search engine... everything you do online leaves a trail. This trail is your digital footprint.

Understanding how to manage your online reputation or "digital footprint" is a challenging process. To complicate matters further, it's not just your own online actions you need to worry about-what others say and post about you also contributes to your digital footprint.

"Today our digital footprint is our new first impression, and it starts taking shape the minute we go online." - Diana Graber, CyberWise

Managing your digital footprint

Do you know what your digital footprint says about you? Below are two easy steps to help you identify whether or not your online "first impression" aligns with how you want others to see you now and in the future.

Google yourself.
Google yourself by typing your full name into Google's search box. Keep in mind people might search for you in many different ways.
Example: Jane Doe, janedoe@anymail.com, Jane Doe, teacher, etc.

Questions to ask yourself: Were there any surprises? Were you happy with the search results? Was there anything you wish you could change?

Use Google Alerts to monitor what others are saying about you.
You can sign up for Google Alerts to receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) about you by simply visiting the site and entering your name. You can set the frequency of updates to "as-it-happens," "once a day," or "once a week."
Tips to keep your digital footprint safe

1. Always remember to log off when you have finished with an online service.

2. Do not enter your password on a website using free public Wi-Fi. Hackers on the network can snoop on what you're doing.

3. Remember that most of the websites you visit will make a note of your visit and may also track the websites you visit before and after their website.

4. When you sign up for a new social media site, or when you buy something, you are giving personal information to the people who manage those websites. That information is often shared, circulated, and sometimes sold.

5. Remember that anyone can copy and paste anything you say online, and they can then send it to others, or publish it on the Internet.

Video

Common Sense Media created the below video used in one of our secondary digital citizenship lessons "Trillion Dollar Footprint."

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What is a digital footprint? A digital footprint is all of the information online about a person either posted by that person or others, intentionally or unintentionally. Filling out a form, leaving a blog comment, updating your status, checking into a location, emailing or IMing a friend, posting a photo, visiting a website, using a search engine...