I just finished week one in a graduate course based on digital citizenship.  This week has been really interesting, and I have learned a lot.  I didn’t realize how in-depth digital citizenship was.  I originally thought it was learning how to behave appropriately online.  Learning how to conduct yourself online is a part of digital citizenship, but it’s not the whole enchilada.  As part of our assignment this week, we focused on Mike Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship.  The elements are broad due to Mr. Ribble knew that technology would be changing rapidly, and the broad concepts address almost everything and anything that could possibly change.

The graphic above shows all nine elements and a quick definition of each.  I teach first-grade and not all of these are beneficial for my students, but many were.  I chose to focus my attention on digital access, digital communication, digital etiquette, and after more research I also added digital health to my list.  I feel that all students should have access and the ability to learn from digital resources.  Our world is ever changing and I have said for a very long time that we have to prepare our students for jobs that have not even been created yet.  We can’t do this if we are not regularly exposing them to technology and teaching them to be lifelong learners.  First-graders also need to know how to conduct themselves online.  We begin this in my classroom by learning how to comment on each other’s work on the tool, Seesaw.  Students share a glow and a grow on one another’s work.  We focus on what we think is appropriate and how it would make us feel if someone wrote something ugly on our work.  Digital etiquette goes hand in hand with digital communication.  The last one I chose to focus some attention on is digital health.

Digital health continues to reappear as an issue lately.  I have an eight-year-old son, and screen time is something we discuss a lot.  There have been so many studies that refer to the effect screen time has on the brain.  Some relate the effect to the same as being on drugs.    Our world is ever changing with technology, and we need to prepare our students by using technology to teach, but we should also be very aware of also providing some face to face time and teaching our students the importance of limiting their screen time at home as well.

The last piece of the week that really opened my eyes was researching the different definitions of digital citizenship.  ISTE recently reviewed their definition to focus more on students making a change in the digital world.  I love the idea of teaching our students how to make a change with technology.  I also loved the iCitizenship project that focused on teaching students how to be global digital citizens.  I hope to teach my students how they belong to a much bigger world, and how they can make a difference.

Graphic from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15664662@N02/17190424026/  Licensed under CC BY 2.0

https://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-turn-kids-into-psychotic-junkies/

https://www.mbfxc.com/the-icitizen-project-a-collaborative-journey-through-social-media.html