I often talk to my math students about math being a part of their everyday life. No matter what you do in your career or your life, math will most likely be involved in some shape or form. In researching digital citizenship this week, I think the same arguments can be made for its importance. Students from kindergarten through college are a part of the digital world and they encounter technology on a daily basis. Learning how to function and be a good citizen in the digital world should be a pervasive part of my classroom environment and curriculum. I don’t believe my current classroom is meeting this standard, but I have found several resources to help me improve it going forward.
I prefer the idea of teaching digital citizenship by incorporating small lessons throughout the year rather than devoting a specific unit to the topic. I think it should be woven into my math lessons. I try to utilize technology often in my lessons, so the digital citizenship topics should fit in nicely. Matt Davis of Edutopia offers a great list of video resources to engage students in discussions of digital citizenship. The videos can help students visualize and get a feel for the impact these topics can have in their lives.
Parents also play a critical role in developing good digital citizens. It is important to partner with parents in modeling digital citizenship and providing a consistent message. This Edutopia article provides many resources to share with parents. I plan on sharing the resources I use in the classroom with parents through my classroom website.
Exploring this topic has provided me with several ideas to implement in my classroom. I am planning to start an edmodo site for my class which will allow me to discuss social and give students practice in responsible posting in a safe environment. The CarnegieCyber Academy provides free resources for teachers including online games that give students an entertaining way to practice the topics. Another idea I would like to explore is displaying sample posts or tweets as discussion starters. I think students would enjoy analyzing the posts and discussing the positive and negative aspects. I now realize that there are many resources available for promoting digital citizenship and many of them are free.
I really liked your post. You have some great points that I hadn't really though about. I think it's a great idea to have small lessons related to digital citizenship mixed through the year. I also like the idea of having resources for parents on your website
ReplyDeleteI currently use Edmodo in class and I agree that it's a great way to have students post things in a safe environment. I hope you have better success getting students to post than I do.
Thank you for your ideas. I hope you don't mind if I borrow some of them.