Twitter Chat #2: Digital Citizenship

Our Twitter chat on September 28th focused a lot on digital citizenship and how we can teach our students the proper ways to use technology. More specifically, the aspect of digital citizenship that we mainly focused on was cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a widespread issue that many of our students have or will experience throughout their high school career. Unfortunately, almost no students ever report cyberbullying to the correct adults. Cyberbullying is the same as physical bullying because it can cause the victim to feel unsafe, to question their worth, and includes bystanders such as public shaming. In fact, some may argue that cyberbullying is a bigger threat than physical bullying because cyberbullying can spread like wildfire and cause serious damage to a student's reputation. It is interesting to look at the statistics of how many students actually get cyber bullied. It's a shame that many schools and administrations either turn a blind eye to the issue or just have their hands tied with regards to what they can or can not do.

Some of the questions that A'ngelique asked us during our Twitter chat revolved around how we can model and teach proper technology uses and digital citizenship. There were some great ideas that were suggested by the cohort during the chat. One idea that stood out to me was to use real-life examples and stories to emphasize the importance of online safety. Students can listen on and on to the do's and don'ts of digital citizenship but a story can really stick out to them and teach them a lesson more profoundly than a lecture would. Also, prior to teaching what is ethical and unethical, it is important to define the terms to the students so they can better understand the concept when you do start to teach the lesson.

An aspect from the Twitter chat that stood out to me was that technology usage is so prevalent in the 21st century society and because of it, digital citizenship should be taught in classrooms as an important skill such as respect is taught in the classroom. I never thought about it that way before but it makes so much sense once you examine the role of technology in your students' lives. They need to know basic things such as how to create strong passwords, how to avoid phishing scams, how to stay away from strangers online, the dangers of online dating, legal usage rights for media, and how to avoid plagiarism. Also, in my opinion, it is important to teach young girls the value of self-worth, especially of how that manifests itself online. There have been too many sexting instances that ended up in public shaming where most of the time, young girls were the victim. It is a shame that more teachers do not spend the time to talk about these issues in their classrooms. Just by knowing some of these tips and tricks, students can protect themselves and avoid boatloads of trouble down the road.

It was interesting to have Rob Marsh, a Washington State University of Vancouver alumni, join us for our Twitter chat last week. I actually happen to know him from Covington Middle School where I worked as an ELL staff assistant for a year. He seems like a genuine nice guy and a good teacher. It was nice to hear his ideas about digital citizenship as he is currently teaching in a Title III school. I believe that his approaches to teaching digital citizenship are more relevant to my current student teaching experience because I also am teaching in a Title III building.