Digital Citizenship

As I started reading the resources and research about digital citizenship, I began to feel a little overwhelmed.  The topic seems to be incredibly broad as well as incredibly important.  I decided to focus on two subtopics within digital citizenship that I feel are most important to my third graders:  cyber-bullying and using caution when communicating on-line.

When I was a kid, all I had to worry about was the classroom bully.  In fact, I can still remember his name.  He would pull chairs out from under kids as they tried to sit down, make fun of how kids acted, and call others horrible names.  I thought that was bad enough, but now kids have to worry about the types of bullying possible face to face as well as the whole new area of cyber-bullying.  We have all seen the effects of cyber-bullying in the news and, unfortunately for some, maybe in our own personal lives.  It almost seems like there is an epidemic of this online behavior occurring.  As has been our calling in the past, teachers and schools must address this current issue and help students learn how to deal with it. 

To me, one of the most important things students need to learn about the internet is that the things they type and post online have the same impact as the words they speak.  It is easy to hide behind a screen, and the distance it creates between you and another person can make you feel like your words don't affect them.  However, we know this to be false.  One way I plan on covering this with my class is to compare and contrast "old-fashioned" bullying with online bullying.  This will allow students to see that while one happens in person and the other seems to be impersonal, there are still many similarities.  The consequences and damaged caused by cyber-bullying are just as real and painful as bullying someone in person.  I found a good lesson on this at commonsensemedia.org designed for grades 3-5.

A similar issue facing students in our digital age is using caution when communicating on-line.  The BrainPop video that edutopia's Digital Citizenship Week page linked to did an excellent job introducing this.  Mary Beth Hertz had an excellent post about linking internet safety to stranger danger for younger students on edutopia.  If you are interested, read her post here.  Our students are using social media, even at young ages.  They chat with people on instant messaging or within games.  It is important that they are aware of the dangers of talking with people they don't know.  Again, I feel like the screen creates a sense of security for them and they don't realize that speaking with strangers digitally is just as dangerous as face to face.

While reading all of these resources, I came to a somewhat startling realization.  If I have felt so overwhelmed by how and when and why to teach digital citizenship to my 3rd graders, then their parents must feel the same way.  In fact, I wonder how many parents realize how important it is to teach their children these things.  I have decided to start sharing articles I read about safe internet practices and digital citizenship with the parents of my students.  One example I found is also on edutopia by Matt Levinson, appropriately titled "Think Before You Click". 

Our children (well, your children/my students) are growing up in a completely different world than did we.  The threats that face them are similar to, but not completely the same as ours and it is our job as adults to help them learn how to act as a safe, responsible digital citizen.