Digital Citizenship - my week 5.

This week I focused on the importance of digital citizenship in our schools.  Here is my report, I hope you enjoy it and maybe find somethings useful. 

Digital Citizenship Initiative for Riverside School will be presented to our school staff and colleagues.  Riverside is an Intermediate School with two grades, 5^th and 6^th.  Digital citizenship should be a major priority at this age because these are the students that are starting to explore how technology can influence both their academic and social lives.  My plan is simply to build a curriculum based on these three main ideas: understanding the technology, safe communication online, and netiquette: responsible usage of technology.

Digital Citizenship - The concept that users should know how to use technology

appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. – Using Technology appropriately
 

The issue with digital citizenship in our schools is that our teaching is a decade behind the technology.  Our schools need to spend some time educating our students that the internet is not some new aged wild west where anything they say or do goes.  Students need to understand anything they say can hurt others and even potentially themselves.  Pictures or videos they post can come with big consequences.  Lastly, they need to know just because they might be in the comfort of their family and friends’ homes the internet can still be very dangerous. 

  https://webmail.hse.k12.in.us/owa/redir.aspx?C=06ee9591ffb5430bb5ddd7b9ad33c898&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pcworld.com%2farticle%2f206107%2fthe_17_most_dangerous_places_on_the_web.html

While there are a lot of websites that bring good educational information right to your fingertips here are several websites that are great on how to best navigate the internet wisely:

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/start.htm

http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents

Netsmartz opens up with information to parents but there is much more for educators, teens, and even law enforcement.  Along with my slideshow presentation these are a few of the websites that I would use to showcase the importance of digital citizenship.  I leave thinking of the great quote from the Spiderman comics - “With great power comes great responsibility.”  The internet has great power indeed and we as teachers need to educate our students that they need to use it carefully. 

My Sliderocket.