2-2 In your Blogger blog,
reflect on your own digital footprint and personal thoughts on digital
citizenship, as well as the necessity of teaching students about digital
citizenship in school. Also, discuss your thoughts on an appropriate age of
introduction to digital citizenship.
"Kids are growing up on a digital playground and no one is on recess duty."
-@ Kevin Honeycutt
This was a quote that made me stop in my tracks, when I saw it on a Pintrest board. I felt it was a startling, yet accurate description of students in our schools today.
Personally, I have struggled with thoughts about digital citizenship for a long time, stemming from my teaching background in a tech-savvy private school where I learned to post, text, and surf the net side-by-side with my students. As a "in loco parentis" I was friends with students and their parents on Facebook when I first joined, and used it as a tool to monitor (and try to prevent) poor choices made by my high school students. At first this was applauded by administrators, as time went on, friending students and parents grew to be a taboo. I don't even want to think about how many images I "stole" online, with digital screen shots, before I learned that it was a copyright issue!
With so many aspects of digital citizenship, we are all wandering in an unmonitored playground, hoping we are making the right choices as we all grow and develop. This experience made me feel that the digital citizenship of a teacher, like personal life, should be somewhat transparent: modeling acceptable, yet realistic, behavior, learning from our mistakes, and helping set positive expectations for the community. Live, learn, and grow. It is also important to be aware of what we post, and the misinformation that might be linked to us as posted by others.
I found a great resource for digital citizens of all ages when visiting the Northern Gateway Digital Citizenship site, I liked that it was set up for students of various ages, parents, and teachers. As the parent of a 9 year old, and an 11 year old, I want them to learn early, what the digital citizenship expectations are. I always like the comment, "don't do anything that would make you embarrassed to show your Grammy" - that applies for sites visited, comments posted, and information shared.
We are all growing and developing in an exciting, sometimes terrifying, information age. We are learning to be responsible digital citizens as we shape this new frontier.
Great post! I appreciate the open and honest way that you have put your thoughts out there for us to ponder. I also appreciate your thoughts on all of us exploring this new frontier trying to think of every element of our actions. It can be a scary place one of uncertainty and possible horrific consequence. I was slow to embrace the social media world and only delve into it due to my son wanting to be on Facebook as he entered High School. I felt that if we were "Friends" on Facebook I could monitor his decisions since I wasn't even sure what it was I should be telling him not to do! Luckily he has been responsible and selective of what he shares online. Not that there haven't been "mistakes" that were quickly removed, but at least I feel that he was still at an age that I could have input and guide him in understanding the ramifications of poor online choices.
ReplyDeleteI love that quote by Kevin Honeycutt! I have unfortunately worked with adults that were using the internet inappropriately a few years back (gambling and looking at pornography) while at work. There were rules and they didn't seem to care. There were even safeguards put on the network to prevent viewing these types of websites, but these folks worked in IT so they could somehow bypass it. I think that the advantage that we have with technology now is that we are educating children from the very beginning. Like any other moral or lesson we teach, hopefully it will stick. There will probably always be that one person that doesn't follow the rules, but I am sure there are more that will.
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