Monday, June 8, 2015

What is Digital Citizenship?

School safety is a top priority.  As educators, we work to ensure that our students are safe physically, socially, and emotionally.   With more and more media and technology in our student's lives, helping students be safe online and using technology responsibly is crucial to their development and well being.  

We live in a digital world where we interact digitally everyday. To be successful in this digital world we have to know what is right and wrong, be able to capably use technology, and exhibit responsible behavior when using it.  This is the concept of digital citizenship. 

To be a good digital citizen, you need to be digitally literate, and teaching students digital literacy is crucial for them to be good digital citizens.  Below is a video that offers some perspective:

In my school, we have focused on teaching digital citizenship to students beginning in the early elementary grades.  It's appropriate and needed. Well before kids begin formal schooling, chances are they have already had many experiences with media and technology.  So, what can an elementary teacher do to teach digital literacy and digital citizenship to young learners?  
Mary Beth Hertz, a k-8 Technology teacher in Philadelphia, writes about digital citizenship in the elementary classroom in two of her blog posts on edutopia.  These are good articles to begin thinking about teaching this topic: Digital Citizenship in the elementary classroom and How to to teach internet safety to young students .


Here are a few great resources I found for teaching digital digital literacy and digital citizenship with elementary students:










I hope this blog post and the included resources are useful to you and your students.  Thank you for reading!





 











1 comment:

  1. This is an ever changing subject. Hopefully we can embed common knowledge into our children so they can always be prepared for what is in the future. Thank you for sharing these resources Michael!

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