Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Tool X: Digital Citizenship

There are many things that I want my students to be aware of when it comes to digital citizenship.  The first thing is to be discerning about the information that they are accessing.  Anybody can post anything on the internet and it is extremely important to be able to recognize the legitimate from the illegitimate.  The second thing I want my students to be aware of is the fact that whatever you post on the internet is there forever and for the entire world to see.  Social media has given everyone involved an air of vanity.  What I mean is that there are so many forums to post thoughts, ideas, and pictures that soon you get a feeling that everyone wants to know everything you are doing and thinking.  A false feeling that YOU are the center of the social universe.  I believe in ten to fifteen years we will be tying early adult depression to social media.  Social media also ties into the third thing that I would like for my students to be aware of which is cyber bullying.  We have all heard heartbreaking stories about children who have either tried to take their lives and failed or, even worse, succeeded.  I get the feeling that the students do not fully understand the power that words have and how important it is to stand up for what they know is wrong.

I plan on using BrainPop in my classroom.  The students enjoy the clips and they are both quick and informative.  Each clip has a quiz at the end as well which can be useful for fast assessments.

I like the lessons from common sense media.  They seem to be comprehensive and cover all age ranges.  Requiring students to read some of this would be a good idea.

I plan to pass the idea of digital citizenship on to the parents of my students by putting it on my syllabus and sharing it with them on parents night.

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