Digital Citizenship is a broad topic with many different branches, yet it is part of the NETS standards that we include it in our curriculum. How can we ensure we are touching on all of the facets of digital citizenship prior to introducing a digital technology project in the classroom? What makes a good digital citizen?
Hopefully, students are learning about digital citizenship from the moment they first touch a computer. Ideally, we would only be doing a "refresher course" for our students when we introduce a digital technology project. However, with everything that we do, we do a diagnostic assessment to find out where our students are at. I suggest doing that here as well. We can quickly fill in any gaps they have and then proceed. Most students have computer as part of their "specials" rotation throughout elementary school. In this time they learn to word process and navigate on a computer. Can DC be incorporated into this as well? If the students are hearing this information at every level, it will become second nature to them-like the english language, or addition.
I wanted to also bring something kind of fun to the class. A UK company called Think You Know created a cartoon series about digital citizenship aimed at elementary school students. Its a relateable way to talk to young students about how to behave online.
Hector's World
In addition to the cartoon videos, the site has lots of stuff for lesson plans or activities and is designed as a sort of "One stop shop" for introducing digital citizenship. Another part of the Think You Know website has resources for teachers, including actitives on DC for ages 4-16.
DC Resources
Ashley...Nice post with good points. Your right when you mentioned that students should already know what good citizenship is and what it really means. But we can not assume that all kids have used a computer before middle school due to their familys economic status and also if their school was able to fund enough money to have a large amount of computers in their school. Some students may have worked on a computer just a handful of times and have no idea how to have good digital citizenship. Sometimes its a crap shoot! Enjoy this week off see you tuesday
ReplyDelete"Hopefully, students are learning about digital citizenship from the moment they first touch a computer. Ideally, we would only be doing a "refresher course" for our students when we introduce a digital technology project." - Excellent thoughts here. I agree. If we were focused on this from the early years of schooling, it would be a nice refresher, but I think until we start a standardized method of providing information to students, they may not encounter this even up through middle school. Thanks for the resources, they are great!
ReplyDeleteAshley,
ReplyDeleteOnce again a very thorough post with excellent resources. I love reading what you have to say each week.
This post provides some good insights. I, too, believe that in school we should be using diagnostic assessments to see where our students are in terms of computer literacy, digital citizenship, etc.
The two websites you shared provide valuable resources for many teachers who may not be very comfortable with the topics either. Overall, this post was excellent and I am glad you shard your findings with us!