In addition, personally speaking, teachers are responsible to teach our children how to use digital technology appropriately for creating and maintain a safe and healthy network environment. I totally agree with a saying from the article Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship, that we must teach everyone to become responsible digital citizens in this new society. At the same time of enjoying the convenience of the digital technologies, it is essential to be a responsible digital citizen. 

First, it is common to see that children are becoming computer-literate in the modern society. It is unsurprising that techno-babies can handle an iPad before they have learnt how to tie their own shoelaces. Digital world is a big melting pot where children can play and learn what they want. 

Second, technology is playing an increasingly vital part in the classroom. Children can learn different kinds of subjects, such as English, Math and Science as well. Besides, teachers also use digital system to assign homework and grade students’ performance in many schools.

Third, due to the booming process of digital learning, so many professional educational programs have been tapped out. Whether you are a kid or an adult, you can always find a suitable one for your digital learning.

In conclusion, using technology in an educational environment is not about just shifting traditional lessons onto screens - it's about allowing pupils to make use of their devices to truly enhance their learning while giving teachers better ways to track individual achievement and personalize lessons."

 

The Digital Citizenship curriculum is such an amazing resource! I have shared the link with my husband who is an assistant principal in a middle school. Like in the article Do the Right Thing: Managing the Digital Lives of Teens, his middle school students are all issued tablets. One of the ways to improve student engagement and responsibility around the tablets is to make sure they truly understand the responsibility. Discern how to exchange information, and keep themselves safe. 

 

The power of words lesson in the Digital Citizenship curriculum I think is something that should be focused on more in schools. The power of words spoken and written can be devastating. You place those words online to be shared over and over, with stranger and friend alike and depending on the message the words can be life altering. Cyberbullying is another topic I have great interest in because we as a society are moving more into a digital age. Digital aggression is a serious problem, children as young as in elementary school are attempting to take their own lives due to being tormented online.

These resources will come in handy with working with teachers and parents.

 

Cyberbullying Facts and Statistics and Cyber Bully Movie

 

I also found the K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum to be such a valuable resource. I think all the teachers should be informed of such useful resources. Out of the eight topic areas, I think the Digital Footprint & Reputation is such a key lesson for all students. “Our digital world is permanent, and with each post, students are building a digital footprint.” Every time kids go online, they must know that they’re leaving a digital footprint. We must remember to ask them and have them reflect on this important question: What kind of digital footprint do you want to leave? I will be sure to have this important conversation with kids in my family.

 

With 30% of the world’s population using the internet and with such prevalence of social media, digital citizenship is more important than ever before. However, in cautioning our children with all this, we must not undermine the advantages of digital citizenship and what it brings to our life: Research, Commerce, Work and Education.

With 30% of the world’s population using the internet, teaching our students the impact of their own digital footprint is important. Especially with the popularity of instagram, youtube, and other social media sites. Our students are on these sites, and it is important for teachers to teach students how to navigate them appropriately. They need to understand that every time they go online, their digital footprint can be searched. There is little privacy in the digital world. I think the Online Reputation and Cyber-bullying lesson from the YouTube digital curriculum was the lesson I found most valuable when thinking about how students should use their digital platforms. It’s important for students to consider the short and long term consequences when thinking about their digital footprint. I think the grandma rule is a rule they can all keep in mind when considering a post. This lesson not only has students thinking about their digital footprint, but it also forces students to think about how to react when they encounter cyber-bullying. Most of our students want to do what is right and want to follow the rules they know are there to keep them and others safe. Like the Common Sense video states, “Because let’s face it, the digital world is a big part of the real world.” It is our job to teach students how to navigate this world safely and encourage them to become model digital citizens.

The YouTube lessons and videos were a great outline of how to begin to teach the importance of specific pieces of digital citizenship. I think this is a resource that would be really helpful for teachers who are just starting to teach their students about being responsible online and are unsure how to get started. I personally feel that this would be a useful tool for me. 

In order to know how to teach students, teachers always need to build background and that is not different when teaching digital lessons. The “Nine Elements” and commonsense.org articles are great supports for building background in order to help teachers feel prepared to teach digital citizenship skills including responsibility, access, literacy, communication, security, and more. The Commonsense website includes great supporting information including internet safety, relationships/communication, digital footprints, information literacy, privacy & security, cyber bullying, self-image, and copyright. Having these resources, among others, will help teachers feel prepared to teach their students the crucial parts of safety and responsibilities that come along with being a digital learner. 

These resources opened my eyes to not only understanding the importance and the reason behind teaching our students to be better digital citizens, but it also helps me find resources to do so. 

 Two fun Flocabulary videos to share with students about digital citizenship: https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/internet-safety/ and https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/oversharing/

After reading everything I think I will use the Scope & Sequence part of the commonsense.org website to help teach my students about how to safely use the technology we have. It seems like there are really good lessons which will help the students, and myself, understand safety when using technology.

First, we should cultivate digital citizen in a more comprehensive and systematical way, which can be generalized into three words or aspects---“respect”, “educate” and “protect”(Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship, 2017). Knowing how to operate hard/software is far from enough; students should be educated with different focuses on different phases concerning the above three aspects according to their cognitive order and needs. As suggested in the curriculum of cultivating digital citizens, kids should begin to receive digital citizen education as early as from kindergarten. Instead of merely being instructed to know how to use the devices, the little kids are firstly introduced to the etiquette, rights and responsibility which are the basis of being a responsible digital citizen. Gradually, the students will come to know how to get access to digitals and communicate via it safely. When students reach Grade 6, they start to touch the idea of law, business, health and welfare. This process is a good preparation for being qualified digital citizens. I think we should adopt it in our school education. 

Second, the issue of safety in digital world can never be neglected. As 30% of world population is technology users (Be a Digital Citizen, 2017), how we deal with it will have a large impact on both individuals and the whole society. Technology is to be used in an appropriate manner. However, this idea hasn’t received enough attention. Students’ insufficient consciousness of electronic standards of conduct or law and the complexity of internet is one of the reasons leading to the cyber bullying and crimes on line especially on the social media. Quite often, teens break the law or are being assaulted without noticing. To enhance their awareness in rights, responsibility and self-protection is necessary. As the video says “every time you go on line, you leave a footprint” and “that is the way we think being acting on line”, we should guide our students to be more aware of their footprints in digital use, meanwhile, to know how to guarantee their own safety. 

Finally, we should emphasize more on the cooperation among students, school and family in digital citizen education. “Being a good digital citizen is more than knowing your way around the web. It’s about connecting and collaborating in ways you didn’t even know were possible” (Digital Citizenship, 2017). With the join hands from these three parties, we can make a big difference. “School needs to create a culture of conversation and partnership with students to figure out how to live with and work through the opportunities and challenges that accompany instituting one to one programs” (Do the Right Thing: Managing the Digital Lives of Teens, 2017). Meanwhile, we should pay more attention to teens’ privacy during cooperation as “kids want to be public without being public”. What’s more, the power of family participation can never be underestimated. “School need to partner with parents to continue with the conversation at home so that we can ensure the messages from home to school and back are consistent.” Only when schools and parents work together can we give students the courage and ability to fly away the crowd and make the right choice.

After watching the three short videos and really exploring the Common Sense site, I kept running into segments that described the impulsivity of tweens and teens.  Mixing social media, YouTube, web surfing, and just complete internet freedom in general can be dangerous when teens are so prone to risk-taking and often neglect to think about consequences, simply because, well….they’re teens (scientifically speaking, the decision-making and planning prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet).   At our school, students are pretty respectful of the technology itself-- they are careful, they know how to “check out” a computer and check it back in, safely, to the cart; however, when it comes to creating a positive digital footprint, they struggle a bit more.  We have run into problems with cyber bullying and students creating a negative social media “reputation” on Instagram and Snapchat.  Levinson, author of Do the Right Thing: Managing the Digital Lives of Teens, quotes Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd, and she hits the nail on the head-- “Kids want to be public without being public.”  I couldn’t help but think how true this was!  They love sharing EVERYTHING with the internet world, but they don’t want EVERYONE to see it.  When they find themselves in tough situations, they say things like, “It was just a joke,” and “I didn’t mean it THAT way,” or “I didn’t think YOU would see it,” (talking about teachers and counselors here).  As educators, I think it’s important to have these tough conversations with teens before a comment, tweet, or internet photo spirals out of control.  Our students are not just consumers anymore, they are real participators and contributors to the online community-- which can be absolutely AMAZING if used safely and positively.

Last year, we had Susan Wind, founder of Parents Know More, a social media awareness program for students and parents, speak at our school.  She only came for parents, but our hope is to extend the program to the students this year.  She covers a lot of digital citizenship and footprint lessons similar to the ones from the Digital Citizenship Teacher’s Guide I reviewed.  I’m excited about this opportunity to help our students understand just how BIG of an impact one little word can make on the world wide web.

 

The world has never ever stopped with changes. The Digital Age brings us new opportunities/ways for information search and collection, entertainment as well as communications. Meanwhile, it also raises new challenges. Reading Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship gives me a massive information in regards to this. Like adults, teenagers also need to know and act in accordance with the norms of appropriate and be responsible for technology use. 

 

Besides, our kids are special. They are digital talented. In Chinese Analects, there is saying “we can learn from everyone else”. Whatever and however we teach kids, we shall always be aware that we can also learn from them too. The story of “Do the Right thing: Managing the Digital Lives of Teens’ vividly illustrate this. Be smart, the future belongs to our kids. 

 

And how to build our curriculum to cope with these changes and requirements is a much more challenge. I find more inspiring ideas with Common Sense Education. The Sector of Family Education provides a great way for families to know about their kids’ digital lives. The educator shall not be alone, and they need support from the society, especially the parents so as to better raise the kids. I am glad we can also have the digital parental participation and hope there are more and more ways and channels soon. 

First of all, we need to respect the students’ digital access. As technology is everywhere, students need to have access to technology. We teachers could not block the students’ entrance to technology simply because they like to play games on digital devices.
  

Secondly, we need to educate the proper usage of technology in our curriculum. I am quite amazed to read the “Curriculum: Understanding Youtube & Digital Citizenship” prepared for secondary students aged 13 to 17. It sets clear learning objectives on all aspects of digital usage. Also the “K-12 Digital Citizenship Program” addresses real challenges for teachers and students to help schools navigate cyberbullying, internet safety, and other digital dilemmas. Sadly, not all schools and teachers are aware of the fact that we are now in the digital era. Information about digital citizenship should be immediately introduced to teachers to make sure we teachers have the ability to prepare the students to be digital citizens.

Thirdly, we need to protect the safe digital usage through proper education methods. In “doing the right thing, managing the digital lives of teens”, a case of how the teacher deals with the student’s mistake when using the digital device. Instead of punishing the student, he praises his frankness and the following managements educate the students on how to correctly deal with digital usage. The teachers says that “the opportunities for dialogue with teens about online behaviors emerge when schools engage in one-to-one programs”. We as teachers should help protect the safety of the students’ digital usage. When they are doing something wrong, we need to lead them to the right path.   
    

“Being a good digital citizen is more than knowing your way around the web. It’s about collaborating in ways you didn’t even know were possible” (K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum). To prepare students to be digital citizens, teachers themselves are to empower themselves to be digital citizens at first place. There are a lot to think, learn, practice and reflect.