Digital Citizenship

What is Digital Citizenship?

According to the i-Safe foundation (Bullying Statistics, n.d.), over half of all teens online have been victims of cyberbullying, and about the same amount have engaged in cyberbullying. Another source found that 10 to 20 percent of young people experience cyberbullying regularly (Bullying Statistics, n.d.).

In a digital world where the younger generation has never known otherwise, teachers and parents must work together to ensure students understand the implications when engaging in social media. Students must be taught to practice good digital citizenship.

According to ISTE (Fingal, 2017) a good digital citizen will:

• Advocate for equal digital access
• Be open minded to other perspectives
• Respect others' digital property as well as their privacy
• Practices online empathy
• Carefully analyze online sources for credibility before quoting or sharing
• Leverage technology for social causes
• Be mindful of self when using digital tools
• Collaborate with others
• Understand that once an online post is made, it is permanent

Teaching Digital Citizenship

As the importance for teaching digital citizenship is becoming highly recognized, there are some great tools online for teachers to access. Anywhere from posters, to information to share with parents, to lesson plans. Here are some of my favorites.

Common Sense Education (n.d.)- Lesson plans, student games and family information

Be Internet Awesome (Google, n.d.) - Google teamed up with ISTE to bring a fun interactive experience called Interland for students to learn more about being a good digital citizen. There is also downloadable curriculum for teachers.

Net Smartz (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, n.d.)- This site, sponsored by Disney, has resources and videos for teachers. It also has a kids site and teens site that includes videos and activities.

Teachers Pay Teachers (n.d.)- Whether you're a fan of Teachers Pay Teachers or not, there are a lot of great posters and lessons on there. Many of them are free (like the poster to the right) as long as you have an account.