I became a Computer Science Engineer 25 years ago and we were taught about programming, how computers work, and how to make our programs efficient. We never were told of how technology needs to be addressed to be a good citizen. Time has passed and now technology is in everyone’s hands all the time. Technology has opened the world, you can be connected with people from every corner of the planet, and you can be informed of everything that is happening at the second that it happens. Technology is just amazing!
But technology has its downside too. Digital tools can be dangerous because you might be exposed to unscrupulous people that want to steal from you or even worse, they might want to hurt you. I did not expect the definitions of digital citizenship to be that extensive. The definitions include all the good and bad things that technology might bring. The definitions that impacted me the most were Ribble (2015)’s and Curran (2012)’s because they involved several pieces.
I was surprised of how Ribble (2015) included nine elements, three categories, and three principles. I had to read the elements several times because some of them sounded repeated to me. However, each one of them is addressing different aspects of digital resources. The one that surprised me the most was Access. I never thought giving access to technology to everyone was part of being a good citizen. It makes sense. If we want everyone to have the same opportunities, everyone needs to have the same tools to be able to compete. Another element that I liked a lot was Literacy. With this element, you need to become an independent learner. You have all the tools to be able to do it. But, you need to share your knowledge if you want to be a good citizen. Love it! I see it every day in my classroom but I never connected that my students were being good citizens when they were helping each other with the apps!
The iCitizen Project (Curran, 2012) was so interesting! It was crazy to read the data of how cyberbullying affects teenagers! It amazed me how she developed a project with college students and juniors from high school using technology. The results were captivating! The big “aha” was that it is necessary to teach empathy. You need to find the time to model how other people might feel when you say face-to-face or post something online. Students need to be aware that what they do has consequences and those consequences can be positive or negative. People need to learn how to be socially responsible and use the digital resources for good.
This week has brought a lot of learning. My digital citizenship view has expanded a lot. You always know that you need to be careful when using technology but digital citizenship includes a lot of pieces. It was an eye-opening that it is necessary to teach online empathy. Students need to put a face to the other side of the conversation and predict what that person might feel with their words or actions. We need to embrace technology with open arms but we need to protect our kids from any harm. If we put all the digital citizenship pieces together, we can achieve both.
References:
Curran, M. (2012, June). iCitizen: Are you a socially responsible digital citizen. Paper presented at the International Society for Technology Education Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX. Retrieved from (PDF: icitizen_paper_M_Curran.pdf )
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know (3rd ed.). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education
