Assignment #2: Digital Citizenship

Educating Teachers, parents and Community on Digital Citizenship

Technology has changed children’s lives. In fewer than 30 years, we have gone from barely hearing about cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players to almost not being able to live without them. Many of us can’t get away from our e-mail, instant messaging, or the Internet, even on vacation, because we now have mobile devices that we carry with us all the time. Some of us feel lost without our cell phones, laptops, or MP3 players to the point of being almost unable to function. With all this technology, do we ever stop to ask, “Am I using this technology appropriately?” or does this thought even enter our minds? If we do think about it, are we teaching students to become more responsible with their behavior, and does this carry over when they
go home? Do we have a “common language” that we can use to talk to students and parents about appropriate technology behavior? We can’t teach them if we can’t reach them. (Suzie Nestico, 2011)

According to Caroline Knorr on her article is that teachers, parents and the community are responsible for educating and learning alongside of adolescents, teachers should absolutely have a facebook account. We cannot teach appropriate digital citizenship if you cannot model it. Period.  Many schools do discourage it and of course, rightfully, discourage “friending” students. But the bottom line is this the world is changing fast and if we want to understand how our students operate, we've got to learn the tools ourselves. No one can tell you. It has to be experienced, first-hand.

Students are bored & disengaged often because we are not communicating with them at their level. Part of being a responsible Digital Citizenship as a teacher is being in the know. And, no, I do not mean creeping around our students’ Facebook pages ad blurring the boundaries of our relationships with students. As educators, we have to be using the technology in order to protect ourselves, as well. In today’s touchy society, it is difficult to protect ourselves from liabilities we don’t think of too often.  We cannot do this unless we first understand this.  We need to learn it not only to teach our students, but also to teach and protect ourselves. According to Common Sense Media Video it talks about the safe and responsible online behavior means being a good cyber citizen. We live in a rapidly changing media and tech world in which kids are far more plugged in digitally than parents and teachers are, and these technologies present huge challenges for our kids and how they grow up.