Monday, January 9, 2012

Tool # 10 Digital Citizenship

Our role as teachers has always been to prepare students to be successful in life, out in the real world.  The new world  today is technology and although kids are surrounded by technology since early age and “know” more than adults, it is important to notice that we must teach about safety and responsibility when using technology.
Learning and teaching about digital citizenship is one of the most important things we have to teach to our students today. Notice, I say “learning” as well. Many of us are not too familiar with many of this new technology and of course before we teach it, we need to learn it and understand it.
Three things I consider Important for my students to know and understand are:
1. The responsibilities they have with themselves and others while on the net. They need to exercise Digital Ethics and understand how some behaviors and/or comments can harm others.  (cyber bullying).
2. To make appropriate decisions such as what boundaries should they have for sharing information on facebook.
3. To understand how all those digital footprints can affect their future.
I really liked Wesley Fryer presentation and it is definitely one of the resources I will share with my students and parents.  For the student is obvious we can plan to have presentations during class and “teach” the idea through videos, lectures and discussions of their own experiences. For parents, I think the school could sent out informative brochures or/and organize informative sessions and invite them to attend. Although in our school the majority of parents are educated, there are still many of them who also may be technologically handicapped and would need our help.

2 comments:

  1. Good point - we take it for granted that our parents are on top of it but we shouldn't just assume that!

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  2. I agree with your comment especially on number 3. If students could see and understand what they say and put on the internet will be with them forever, they'll be less in inclined to make errors

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