Videos

Lessons on Digital Citizenship From Charlie Brown

In this TEDxYouth video, Marialice Curran presents digital citizenship in a powerful and simple way by referencing Charlie Brown. Her entire presentation discusses how Charlie Brown would be a 21st Century learner. She explains that Charlie Brown is kind all of the time, he is principled, he doesn't follow a crowd, he is a problem solver, and he never gives up. She explains that Charlie Brown would be the ultimate Digital Citizen because he would be the exact same online as he would be offline. She goes on to explain how Charlie Brown would exhibit those same strengths today as he did so many years ago and gives specific examples of his characteristics of a Digital Citizen. This video explained Digital Citizenship in a way that would be able to explain to an elementary student.

Rethinking Digital Citizenship

Althought this was a short video, it was very powerful to me! The whole idea behind this video is that we need to rethink Digital Citizenship by keeping it positive and referring to the "Do's" instead of the "Don'ts" of online learning. Their rationale is that by keeping it positive we can do something about it . . . we can practice doing something positive, you can't practice "not" doing something. Richard Culatta suggests instead of "anti-bullying" discuss how to be a "good cyber friend" and watch out for people who are not being treated respectfully online. He goes on to describe Digital Citizenship Competencies as : Be Inclusive, Be Engaged, Be Balanced, and Be Safe. He ends the video with a tip that we all know is true, but is hard to hear . . . we, as adults, must do a better job of showing these competencies because we are not being a good example to our children. This is something as a teacher that I will strive to do!

Articles & Research

Developing Students' Digital Citizenship Skills

This article is a great resource to look at when you are beginning to teach about Digital Citizenship. It starts out by explaining what Digital Citizenship is and then goes on to explain the Digital Citizensip skills that we should be teaching our students: Privacy and Security, Communication, and Cyberbullying. It then goes on to give you links to great resources that you can use in your classroom. The links take you to lessons, websites with information, and teaching resources that all teach Digital Citizenship. It ends with sharing ways that students can later share out what they have learned about Digital Citizenship and teach others what they have learned.

Digital Citizen

This article does a thorough job of explaining exactly what a Digital Citizen looks like according to the ISTE standards. In a nutshell, the student should be able to embrace a sense of empathy and personal responsibility. They explain this by dividing up the role of Digital Citizen into three categories: Digital Self, Digital Interactor, and Digital Agent. Digital Self refers to how a student acts online. They should avoid cyberbullying, be responsible and kind, and overall act in an ethical way. Digital Interactor refers to how a student uses tools, how they interact with others. Digital Agent refers to students making a positive impact online and works towards the good in things. I will refer to this article as my students become better Digital Citizens and refer to the descriptions included in this article to help my students become more responsible with technology.

Activities

We The Digital Citizens - Lesson

This is an actual lesson that I plan use to teach Digital Citizenship to my 2nd graders. The lesson begins with the students singing a song about Digital Citizenship and then making a promise to be responsible digital citizens. It goes on to talk about the following topics: Why is it important to ask for permission before going online? Why is it a good idea to have a time limit when using technology? Why shouldn't you share your username and password with other people? Why should you only talk to people you know online? This is a great lesson that puts Digital Citizenship into very easy language for 7-9 year olds to understand.

Internet Safety for Kids - Video Lesson

This is a video for young elementary students that focuses on internet safety. It discusses communicating with strangers, what personal information is, not keeping online secrets from grownups, and appropriate ways to use the internet. I would use this resource to continue a discussion about internet safety and digital citizenship.

Safe Online Behavior Quiz

This is a quick assessment used to show how well students understand safe online behavior. I could use this as a culminating activity after teaching about Digital Citizenship. This activity could be pushed out through Google Classroom and could be administered live or at the students' individual pace. This would be a great formative assessment to see if the students understand the concepts of online safety.

Brain Pop, Jr. Digital Citizen Lessons

These are two Brain Pop, Jr lessons that both teach about Digital Citizenship on a lower elementary level. In the "Digital Etiquette" lesson the students are taught to recognize safe, appropriate, positive, and responsible online behavior and are given strategies to avoid negative online behavior. In the "Internet Safety" lesson students learn about what to do if a stranger approaches you online, how students can be safe on the internet by not sharing personal information, and how students can keep their computer safe by not downloading things to a device without an adult and using strong passwords. Both of these lessons end with a quiz to check for student understanding. Both of these lessons can be taught in a whole group setting, or can be assigned to Google Classroom to be completed individually.

Reflections

Digital Citizenship is a term that I have heard many times as an educator, but I must admit, it is a term that I have not really thought about teaching to my 2nd graders, beyond the very basics. I enjoyed looking for resources this week because I feel like I had my own students in mind and everything that I found was relevant to our younger learners.

The lessons and activities that I found are all ones that I plan to include in my unit plan this week and am excited to use with my students. In addition to the actual lessons, the two videos that I included are both great resources because they explained Digital Citizenship in very simple terms that I could use in discussions with my students. I loved the Charlie Brown reference in “Lessons on Digital Citizenship From Charlie Brown” because he is a character that my students know, and any time we can make a connection with something the students already know then it helps that learning stick (Curran, 2016). We also talk about character traits in our reading stories and in social studies, so we can make that connection as well and discuss how showing those traits of being a responsible Digital Citizen affect ourselves and others. I also loved how the video “Rethinking Digital Citizenship” talks about the “Dos” of Digital Citizenship instead of the “Don’ts”. We spend a lot of time in 2nd grade talking about spreading kindness and this is a way we can incorporate it into technology . . . showing kindness to others even when we are online (YouTube, 2018).

Overall, when it comes to the younger grades, I believe our focus should be mainly on online safety and being respectful online. Of course we need to focus on the whole standard, but these are the two that are most relevant to 2nd graders. In a nutshell, we should be encouraging our students to behave online the same way they would be expected to behave offline . . . with kindness, respect, and responsibility. When they behave that way, they will leave behind a digital footprint to be proud of! As stated in "Teaching Digital Citizens in Today's World," our ultimate goal is to help our students "tap into the positive opportunities to thrive as learners, leaders, and citizens in the digital age" (Weinstein & Mendoza, 2021).

References

BrainPOP Jr. (n.d.). Digital etiquette. https://jr.brainpop.com/artsandtechnology/technology/digitaletiquette/

BrainPOP Jr. (n.d.). Internet safety. https://jr.brainpop.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/

Common Sense Education. (n.d.) We, the digital citizens. https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/lesson/we-the-digital-citizens?check_logged_in=1

Curran, M. (2016, May 26). Lessons on digital citizenship from Charlie Brown. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDGGceA-0A

ISTE. (2018, October 11). Rethinking Digital citizenship. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwKTYHBG5kk

James, C., Weinstein, E., & Mendoza, K. (2021).Teaching digital citizens in today's world: Research and insights behind the Common Sense Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsense.org/system/files/pdf/2021-08/common-sense-education-digital-citizenship-research-backgrounder.pdf (in reflection)

MoneyMoments. (2021, September 27). Internet safety tips for kids. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJNRxMRuPE

Nearpod. (n.d.). https://nearpod.com/t/technology-and-computer-science/kindergarten/safe-online-behavior-k5-L80112186?oc=lesson-library&utm_source=link

Poth, R. D. (2023, November 16). Developing students’ digital citizenship skills. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-digital-citizenship-skills/

See The ISTE Standards. (n.d.). Digital citizen. https://www.seetheistestandards.org/digital-citizen

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