DigitalCitizenship-Jessica

 

How Can Digital Citizenship Affect Students Interactions with One Another and Facilitate More Effective Online Learning?   Digital Citizenship is the understanding of manners and appropriate behavior within the digital realm of life. Considering the technological advances that this world is making day by day, digital citizenship is huge to understand. As teachers, we expect students to know how to behave and interact with politeness and manners in face-to-face situations. However, looking at today and to the future, we see more and more of our typical “face-to face” interactions moving to the digital realm. This includes online chatting, emails, blogging, using cell phones to text and so on. With students finding themselves increasingly online, don’t they need to know how to behave there as well? Although many of the manners translate from face-to-face to online, there are also many other ideas and safeties that students need to be taught in order to be effective contributors to the online and digital world. Digital citizenship is the idea of teaching our students how to become effective and contributing citizens to the online world. Without the knowledge of what it means to be a digital citizen, students may continually fall into safety hazards and never learn what it means to communicate effectively. This concept is hugely important to instill in our students with an increasingly advancing technological world. After reading and analyzing all of the research I have collected, the significance and importance of digital citizenship has heavily made itself known to me. Clearly, a main theme throughout the research is the importance of the nine elements of digital citizenship. Using these nine elements to build a foundation on which to teach and use technologies in a classroom is clearly imperative. The elements outline all of the different “behaviors” that are encountered and interacted with online and how to proceed through them cautiously. In addition to these elements, being able to employ them to help develop digital citizens within your classroom is important. Tangible strategies concerning each element are available and easy to introduce with students of any age. I found it interesting that it is not noted anywhere how delayed the idea of digital citizenship is. The internet and other digital medias have been around for about 15 years now, and although most advances have taken place more recently, there is a disconnect from when the internet age came into effect and when the idea of digital citizenship popped up. When looking at how important face-to-face interactions are and analyzing behaviors in those circumstances, why didn’t someone look to online relationships and interactions when those became popular. Digital citizenship is huge not just for students but anyone. With the internet being so public and actually invasive, safety becomes a huge issue. Instilling in kids an awareness and attitude of safety will not only keep them from harm, but will ensure them to be better overall citizens of the digital age.

 The Nine Elements 1) **Digital Etiquette**- standards of conduct and social but digital norms 2) **Digital Communication-** the exchange of ideas and information digitally 3)**Digital Literacy-** teaching and learning about the effectiveness and uses of technology 4) **Digital Access-**digital participation in the digital societal realm 5) **Digital Commerce-**buying and selling online or through other digital media 6) **Digital Law-** responsibility for actions digitally and online 7) **Digital Rights & Responsibilities-**Freedoms and privileges everyone experiences online 8) **Digital Health & Wellness-** well being in the digital realm 9) **Digital Security-** precautions taken to guarantee online safety Sample Strategies **Etiquette-** Model appropriate uses of technology for both inside and outside of the classroom
 * Communication-** Encourage students to use digital medias to communicate but correct them when they are using it inappropriately
 * Access-** Encourage the use of websites that promote equal access in both language varieties and structure
 * Commerce**- Allow students to practice or partake in online shopping for the classroom, promoting ideas of safe buying and noting the dangers of identity theft
 * Law**-Discuss plagiarism and copyright laws using examples of music download or websites like turnitin.com
 * Rights and Responsibilities**- Discuss school and classroom policies regarding technology and give students a chance to contribute to classroom policies.
 * Health & Wellness-** Teach children about various websites and medias that could better their physical and emotional health
 * Security-** Teach students to back-up data and digital work and protect their various technologies from damage
 * Safety**- Role play using online conversation scenarios to allow students to practice appropriate communication and responses in various situations

Cyberbullying Examples [|Megan Meier]  [|Rachel's Story]

Useful Resources

Brain Pop: Digital Citizenship This website is a great resource for kids to use to practice good methods of digital citizenship

Digital Citizenship Website Good resource for teachers to have a better understanding of what digital citizenship is and its importance within the classroom.

Digtital Citizenship Blog This teacher created blog provides useful discussion and helpful advice for educators looking to create a safer digital realm for their students.

<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #cc94db; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;">Videos Related to Digital Citizenship

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<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #cc94db; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;">Other Great Resources

<span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">**Villano, M. (2008, September 1). Text unto others as you would have them text unto you. //The Journal.// Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/Articles/2008/09/01/Text-Unto-Others-As-You-Would-Have-Them-Text-Unto-You.aspx?Page=2** <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This article focuses on what the meaning of digital citizenship is and how important and integral it is to both teachers and students. The author claims that digital citizenship is not just about damage control or what to do after an online mistake has already been made. Instead it focuses on the precautionary methods that can be taken to ensure student’s safety online before something happens. The author supports his claim by stating that there are 9 main ideas that students need to understand to practice effective and safe digital citizenship. These 9 terms help to better define digital citizenship as well as set the parameters of expectations. <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This article allowed me to develop a much better understanding of what digital citizenship is and how it can be explained and implemented with students. The explicit definition and belaboring of the point, that it is not about damage control but rather precaution, brought the importance of digital citizenship to a new level for me; causing me to question why this is such a new topic when the internet has been around for so long. Also, the outlining of the 9 elements of how to build digital citizenship helped me to understand how easy but important it will be to explain these elements to my future students. I think that before, I had a decent understanding of what digital citizenship is, however, I did not understand all that it entailed. I feel that now I have learned the ins and outs and am equipped to adequately explain and analyze the importance of digital citizenship. <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">**Ribble, M.S., Bailey, G., & Ross, T.W. (2004). Digital Citizenship: Addressing Appropriate Technological Behavior. //Learning and Leading with Technology, 32//(1). Retrieved from [] ** <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This article focuses heavily on the nine elements of how to build digital citizenship that were outlined in the previous article. What makes this article different however, is that although it outlines that the elements it focuses mostly on various strategies that can be employed by the teacher to build each of the nine characteristics within the students. Digital citizenship can seem like a very broad and general topic, however, this article gives tangible and proactive strategies that can be used to ensure that students are becoming the well-rounded, safe, and polite digital citizens we hope them to be. With hands-on strategies provided, the concept of digital citizenship becomes a reality rather than an ideal. Understanding these strategies and using them within a classroom will be sure to produce students who are and will remain safe online. <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This article has allowed me to decipher how to put this idea into practice. Although the 9 elements are outlined thoroughly in both articles, having strategies to employ them makes the idea of digital citizenship not only possible, but easy. By being provided with these strategies I have a better understanding of what digital citizenship looks like within the classroom and how it affects overall learning when using technologies. The strategies will not only help me in this project, but also when managing my own classroom and students who will use various technologies and digital medias throughout the day. <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">**Ribble, M.S., & Bailey, G. (2007). The Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. In //Digital Citizenship in Schools.// International Society for Technology in Education.** <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">This article, similar to the other 2, focuses solely on the nine elements of digital citizenship. This article more specifically outlines what these 9 elements are and why they are important in aiding the development of digital citizens. The author claims that abiding by these 9 elements will provide appropriate and responsible behavior with regards to the use of technology. The 9 elements outlined are digital etiquette, communication, literacy, access, commerce, law, rights and responsibilities, health and wellness, and security. These 9 ideas are outlined in basic terms and explain why they need to be instilled in anyone who uses technology. This article’s content seems to be geared more towards everyone, but it still highly applicable to students. Giving a more in-depth look into what these 9 elements look like, serves as a great basis for the rest of my findings. <span style="background-color: #c0c0c0; color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although much of what is discussed in this article relates heavily and is similar to the content of the other two articles, this one is more explicit. It has helped me to understand each of these 9 elements and their importance better. Through this article, I was also able to look at them in a more individual fashion. In the other articles, I saw these 9 elements lumped together as one thing with the main goal of producing good digital citizenship. However, through this article, I now seem each element for its own individual importance and how it contributes to the overall goal of digital citizenship.