Elective Badge #4 – Assessment of Digital Citizenship

Key Points/Main Ideas/Connections –

Technology is another member of any classroom.  Just like the students and the teachers, technology needs to be respected for its strengths and weaknesses.  This is the same way we, as citizens, have to treat each other to ensure a safe, ethical environment for everyone to work and learn in.  In his article for ISTE, Ribble (2014) outlines a framework for digital citizenship that center around nine key elements.   These can be grouped into three categories – respect, educate, and protect.  Respect encompasses digital access, etiquette, and copyright or fair use, which is titled digital law (Ribble, 2014).  To educate students about digital citizenship, we need to instruct them on digital communication, digital literacy, and digital commerce.  I was a bit taken back by the inclusion of digital commerce as I was thinking solely about finances.  But Ribble (2014) is not limiting digital commerce to only money.  He states, “As users make more purchases online, they must understand how to be effective consumers in a digital economy,” and part of being an online consumer is engaging in the exchange, or commerce, of ideas (Ribble, 2014).  Under the category of protect, digital citizens must know their rights, how to stay safe, and keep themselves healthy, not becoming Internet obsessed.  With this framework, teachers can build professional learning groups and curriculum to promote digital citizenship.  “We need to make sure we help students understand the issues that might occur online while also stressing the positive impact of technology” (Ribble, 2014).

One resource for building curriculum is the Scope and Sequence put together by Common Sense Education (2015).  Built around a cross-curricular model that spirals, different grades are provided units to teach digital literacy and digital citizenship.  What I found very helpful were the hyperlinks to teaching plans and student packets that aligned with ISTE standards and Common Core.  Having a place to jump off from is always helpful and knowing that this scope and sequence is designed around the framework I described above is also reassuring.  One that I dug into was “A creator’s rights” under the Grade 6-8 standards.  The following video is part of the lesson plan -

What I loved about this was that the subject of the video is a 13 year old girl.  She is the same age as the targeted audience of the lesson! That is so powerful to see peers creating and protecting their online work. 

Edutopia (2014) also has numerous links to help build digital citizenship.  The area that I was thrilled to see was the inclusion of Cyberbullying.  We all know that bullying is a buzz words these days, as it should be, but students may not make the connection between the face to face actions of a bully and what it looks like when you hide behind a screen.  For example, I had a student this past year who no one would have ever considered a bully. He was kind to his peers, helpful to adults, and wonderful example of a citizen of our school.  However, he began posting comments online that were meant to exclude other members of the class.  He was using this space because “parents are not meant to be part of texting, Instagram or Snapchat” (Levinson, 2014).  When confronted by his parents (we were brought into the loop afterwards), the student said he had not meant to bully anyone but just voice his frustration with other students.  Again, this is a child who would have never done such a thing in person, but somehow felt a false sense of bravado by being online. 

Ideas for the Classroom –

1) Have a discussion about digital citizenship and allow students to define rules or guidelines they expect their peers to follow in regards to posting, commenting, and using digital platforms like Edmodo, which we currently use at my school.

2) Use the Common Sense Education lesson plan about copyright for Grade 6-8 before beginning any multimodal responses.

3) Have the students Google themselves to begin following their digital footprint.  Also, have students Google a popular figure and document his or her digital reputation.  This should include information that is positive but also damaging. 

4) Show this video with the wonderful mnemonic THINK –

References:

Common Sense Education. (2015). Digital Citizenship; Scope and Sequence. Retrieved from: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/scope-and-sequence.

Edutopia. (2014). Digital citizenship: Digital roundup. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/article/digital-citizenship-resources.

Levinson, M. (2014). The Digital Lives of Teens: The School is the Neighborhood. Edutopia. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-teens-school-is-neighborhood-matt-levinson.

Ribble, M. (2014). Essential elements of digital citizenship. ISTE. Retrieved from: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=101&category=ISTE-Connects-blog&article=Essential+elements+of+digital+citizenship.