Digital Citizenship in schools is a topic that has been weighing heavily on mind lately. I am a technology integrationist in a 1:1 junior high school. All 800 7th and 8th grade students have MacBooks that they take home. This is a huge responsibility and one not to be taken lightly. In the role I have, I try to teach digital citizenship as much as I can. This year that has included a face to face lesson for each classroom, a weekly discussion board on different topics in Schoology (our LMS) and each advisory class is currently in the process of creating a digital citizenship iBook, but it is still not enough. I would love to see this as a mandatory elective for all students. I would love to see our library media specialist teach monthly lessons for all students. I would love to have every teacher incorporating digital citizenship as a part of their lessons. There needs to be a "we're all in this together" mentality; a united front as a school and as a district.
It amazes me that some educators still feel that students don't need any more education on this topic. I see statements on social media and I hear statements from educators such as, "They already know all that; they are just making "bad" decisions, but they know better". I'm an adult and I make bad decisions daily; we all do. How many of us have ever over indulged in food or alcohol or any other vice? I know many people who never touched another cigarette after seeing the lung cancer illustrations. I taught for several years with a PE teacher who never ate another doughnuts after she saw how bad they are for her and exactly what was going into her system. She was well into her 40's at the time. We all teach our children to be safe when it comes to sex. Why in the world would we not teach them to be safe online?
I truly believe it is our responsibility to make this a priority for our students. Technology can be a wonderful thing when used appropriately and it can be a terrible thing when it's not. We owe it to our students to prepare them; to arm them and make them think before they create a tarnished digital footprint that will follow them for the rest of their life.
