How to Be a Digital Citizen in a Digital World

As you can see by clicking on the above picture, a lot goes on in sixty seconds. Over 600 videos are uploaded onto YouTube. Over 370,000 minutes worth of calls are made on Skype. The equivalent of over 13,000 hours of music is streamed on Pandora. With the internet comes a lot of power that can easily be misused in inexperienced hands. This is where teachers come in.

I remember cell phones being strictly prohibited at my high school as late as 2005, the year I graduated. Six years later, I was back as a substitute teacher. I got a lot of dumbfounded looks when I asked my students to turn off their phones. According to this article, the no-phone policy may have been misguided. Multiple educational organizations have provisionally endorsed the use of mobile devices in class, but some issues need to be addressed first. Needless to say, video phones are risky because students can use them for cheating or worse. There is also the issue of fairness, because not all children can afford their own cell phones; even for those who can, more advanced smartphones may be out of reach. In the case of school-provided technology, teachers must train their students to use it responsibly.

This brings us to the 9 Themes of Digital Citizenship. They are:
1.) Digital access: electronic participation in society.
2.) Digital commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods.
3.) Digital communication: electronic exchange of information.
4.) Digital literacy: process of teaching and learning about technology and its use.
5.) Digital etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure.
6.) Digital law: electronic responsibility for actions or deeds.
7.) Digital rights and responsibilities: freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world.
8.) Digital health and wellness: physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology world.
9.) Digital security: electronic precautions to guarantee safety.

There seems to be some overlap between a few of the themes, but overall they are good guidelines for students to use. Even K-5 students are capable of applying them, as Mrs. Yollis' 3rd Graders' articulate and courteous blog comment makes evident.

Of course, teachers must model digital citizenship in order to teach it. They should use social networking sites to reach out to their older students, all the while maintaining professional boundaries. They need to be mindful of their digital footprints. Granted, this may be difficult going by search results alone. I regret to admit that my blog doesn't come up at all when I do a Google search on myself. All of the results that come up are about two other men who share my name: a knifemaker and a bluegrass musician.