What Is Digital Responsibility?
By Shontae Hamilton
Teaching digital citizenship, or digital responsibility, involves helping students think beyond themselves in order to understand their responsibilities to others and how they can improve their communities. We teach children how to be good citizens of the United States by exploring topics like voting and community service and how to be good global citizens by exploring topics like multiculturalism and diversity. We also need to teach them how to be good digital citizens by interacting with social media and technology in a way that helps rather than harms.
It is also important for us to educate parents about digital citizenship. At Alice Contreras Elementary, administrators Kimberly Benavides & Brenda Fouse see the importance of this, as well. They hosted Coffee with the Principal to share digital citizenship strategies and tips to encourage their children to practice good digital citizenship at home. Mrs. Benavides explained that “students are digital natives and must be engaged, but with technology comes the responsibility of making sure students are being safe. This is why our teachers are trained in digital citizenship to ensure those safe practices.”
For more information on educating parents on digital citizenship, please visit: Common Sense Media for Parents.
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Digital Responsibility
October 1, 2019
by Beverly Liberato
The Importance of Digital Responsibility
In this technological day and age, it is extremely important that we as educators are serving to help keep students safe online. In doing so, we need to talk to students and teachers about Digital Responsibility. FWISD has decided to partner with Common Sense Media, a non-profit company, to educate all of our students and teachers on how to be responsible digital citizens. This is an exciting time for FWISD as we work toward this goal by becoming a Common Sense certified district with Common Sense Media.
FWISD Needs Your Help
In order for FWISD to become a certified district with Common Sense Media, 75% of all campuses must be certified through Common Sense Media's recognition process. Many of our campuses have already gone through the process, and many more are currently in the works. This is an easy process, and lessons, dealing with every day digital responsibility issues facing our students, are already created for educators. Through these lessons, teachers will help the district ensure our students are choosing to be digitally responsible on and off campus. For more information on the Common Sense certification process for schools, click the following link: Common Sense Media Recognition.
Once on the site, scroll down to the Do, Learn, and Reflect section for all of the requirements. Remember, for questions or assistance, please reach out to your campus Digital Learning Educator or email edtech@fwisd.org.
We look forward to being a certified school district and for all of our campuses to receive this wonderful distinction through the Common Sense certification process.
The Shift to Action and Empowerment
By Daniel Baham
In November, I attended the E-Merge conference held at the Region 11 Educational Service Center. It was fun and rewarding to get together with other educators and explore different aspects of educational technology integration.
One of the sessions I attended was moderated by Maria Collins (@CubanTeachrinTX). She led us through the traditional digital citizenship topics from the perspective of digital leadership. As I worked to both listen and take some notes for later review, I found myself typing two phrases that still stand out:
Go beyond yourself and influence others.
We won’t change things overnight.
I am excited about shifting the discussions regarding responsible technology use away from restrictions and prohibitions and into the realm of action and empowerment. Reminding students not to share hurtful information promotes good digital citizenship. Working with students to use social media to call attention to bullying and stand up to it is a step towards digital leadership. In taking those steps, we’re asking students and adults alike to do something that is most likely outside of their comfort zones. How can we encourage them, and each other, to leverage technology in ways that benefit and educate instead of just entertain?
The admonishment of “we won’t change things overnight” is not an admission of defeat. It’s encouragement to take small steps and recognize how small efforts and wins can build over time. I am going to spend more time thinking of ways to empower students, and myself, to strive towards being a digital leader in addition to being a good digital citizen. Won’t you join me?
Do you have any creative ideas for teaching digital responsibility to students?
We would love to hear from you!
(Pssst...you might even be featured in an upcoming post.)
Please share your ideas with us!
Just click on the image below, and log in with your Google or Microsoft credentials.
