Student Content

"The digital age beckons us to usher in a new era of character education, aimed directly at addressing the opportunities and challenges of living a digital lifestyle." ~ Jason Ohler, Digital Citizenship Means Character Education for the Digital Age

Students, let us showcase your work!


This page is in recognition and celebration of the vital role students play in modeling digital citizenship skills within - and beyond - the school day. We invite students from around the world to contribute to the collection and to make visible to a global audience the many ways students are stepping up to the digital citizenship challenge.

A Call to Action: What does it mean to be an upstander? Below is a sampling of multiple opportunities to contribute digitally to an important digital citizenship conversation. Please let us know if you have events to add!

Note: Student-created content is woven throughout this wiki, but we thought that additionally placing it on a dedicated page would make it easier for you to find favorite samples when returning to the page.


2013 PSA Challenge


CONGRATULATIONS! Here are the winners of our 2013 PSA Challenge:


Digital Slide Stories


Congratulations to Kevin Hodgson's students from William Morris Elementary School in Western Massachusetts for stepping up to the Upstanders Together challenge by creating 10 digital slides to promote a culture of upstanders. Using images and no more than 25 words, each slide conveys a powerful message. Click on the slide below to open the slideshow.


Digital Life Posters

From Kevin Hodgson's6th graders in Western Massachusetts: Our unit on digital citizenship encompassed a number of different topics: from privacy issues, to use social networking spaces, to cyberbullying, to copyright protections. While we used the CommonSense Media site for its collection of videos and lesson plans, the activities were also driven in part by an initial survey of students' knowledge and experience in a variety of technologies. The culminating activity was to create an digital poster that focused on at least three subtopics of our inquiry, and offer up advice to readers on those topics.

Note: Posters were created with Glogster. Click on individual images to view full-sized project poster

2012 PSA Challenge

Sound Bytes & Quotes

  • From Natalie Bernasconi's 8th graders, a few shared stories of everyday heroes-
  • Gallery of Heroes presentation - to give you an overview of what Stepping Up looks like in the 8th grade ELA curriculum.
  • I'm American Too: A story from behind fences- The forced relocation of thousands of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast during World War II represents the greatest violation of rights guaranteed to all citizens by the U..S. Constitution. This injustice stands as a reminder of the need to stand up and speak out. Students at several California school sites have created projects to document a chapter of history that happened in their communities during the war years:
    • I'm American Too- "Found" Poetry from Elizabeth Pinkerton Middle School - Jen Hammond's 8th grade Humanities classes:
    • I'm American Too- Poetry in Two Voices from St. Patrick's Succeed Academy - Tosha Tillotson's 8th grade ELA students have connected the internment interviews with other pieces of literature (a work in progress). Note: Once you register with VoiceThread for a free account (a process that takes only a couple of minutes), you will be able to post a comment via voice, text, or webcam.


Students who Speak out and DO:

Student Voices: Here's some compelling insights from students in grades 4-6 reflecting on cyberbullying

These quotes were generated by middle school students reflecting upon their digital identities, using this interactive, introductory worksheet:

Focus 1: Stepping Up

  • I do stand up for others. One time I saw a bad video online about someone at school, and I knew the person who put it up there and I spoke to him about it. Paloma, age 13
  • When I go on other people’s profiles, I don’t judge. ~Desaree, age 12
  • I was online and people were giving out another kid’s info. That’s not right, so I told on them. ~ Maribel, age 13
  • I told a victim’s bully, “Is that all you ever do? Just leave her alone.” ~Vanessa, age 13
  • I told my friend he looks good in his profile picture. ~Bryan, age 11


Focus 2: Building Identities

  • I maintain a positive digital footprint because my FB page has no mean or rude comments. ~David age 13
  • When I googled myself, the research project I had done for my 5-year college & career plan was the first thing that came up. ~Bri, age 14
  • I only post real stuff, not fake info about myself. ~Antonio, age 13


Focus 3: Respecting Boundaries

  • I do respect other people’s digital property. One time I found a facebook page that had been left open and I closed it. ~ Jose, age 12
  • When I wrote my research report, I had to cite my sources. ~Chris, age 14
  • I don’t let friends copy my homework. ~Eduardo, age 13
  • I didn’t read my mom’s email. ~ Isaac, age 12


Focus 4: Online Privacy

  • I do protect my computer & online privacy by not clicking on those “You are the 100th visitor” ads. ~ Leo, age 11
  • I didn’t give my password to my cousin online. ~ Viridanna, age 11
  • I didn’t log on to the pop up site about “Winning an iPad.” ~Genesis, age 12
  • I change my password frequently. ~Luz, age 13


Student Work Submission Form

Teachers, please use this form to submit student-created content from projects your students have created related to any of the 4 foci of the Digital Citizenship project.