Digital Citizenship Week 2017

Post date: Oct 16, 2017 5:10:14 PM

October 16-20 is Digital Citizenship Week. Schools around the country take this opportunity to build awareness and educate students on a very important topic in their lives; how we behave in digital environments.

Internet safety? Creative copyright? Fake news? These things might not be part of our core curriculum, but they are still crucial lessons that must be taught to our students so they can protect themselves in an increasingly digital world.

When teaching your students about being a citizen in the digital world, consider these three criteria:

1. Be Proactive - Focus on what students can change in the future to use technology more confidently and wisely. Focus less on the mistakes they have made in the past.

2. Guide without using Fear - There are many scary things online that can place children in unsafe situations. But, rather than focusing on the fear of these things, we want to empower students to know how to handle these situations and harness digital technologies in positive ways.

3. Focus on Behavior - "It's about neurology, not technology." When we teach kids how to use digital tools in safe and legal ways, we are teaching behaviors, not technology skills. The best digital citizenship lessons don't even involve using technology.

Looking for resources to begin these discussions? Start right here:

  • Common Sense Media: A full curriculum loaded with resources and activities to work through with your students.
  • Google for Education Digital Citizenship Training: A full course for you as a teacher to explore to learn more about digital citizenship and how to teach it in your classroom.
  • Google's Interland - An integrated online web-based game designed to teach the fundamentals of internet safety to younger students.
  • MediaSmarts: Resources for digital literacy and safety including overlooked topics like excessive internet use and managing online privacy
  • NetSmartz: Online training, lesson plans, and student project kits for teaching digital literacy and citizenship.
  • Teach InCtrl: Inquiry and collaborative lessons and learning activities designed to teach key digital citizenship concepts.

If you are looking for more resources, or you are just in need of assistance in starting this conversation in your classroom, please let me know. I am happy to help in any way.