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Digital Citizenship

It seems like you can’t go a day without hearing about someone who has misrepresented themselves in some way in their online presence.  A dating profile, email scams claiming prizes or cash, or extra payment if you’ll put your item for sale on a truck after you’ve shipped the time and cashed some crazy check from some other country.  Another digital hot topic is online interactions.  A misrepresentation on a dating profile, cyber-bullying, phishing - the list goes on and on!
Digital citizenship, at it’s most basic level, is how an individual presents themselves online.  It can include anything from a social media profile to commenting on an anonymous comment board.  It can encompass honesty, integrity, or whether the lack of those traits can land you in prison for a very long time.

As an educator, every opportunity to teach and emulate a positive and honest digital citizenship is a pretty big deal.  I think it is important for kids to understand how important it is to be honest about who they are on AND off line.  I love the ideas presented by Vicki Davis on Edutopia.  Davis talks about the 9 “P’s” that include digital literacy on topics such as passwords, personal information, photographs, and professionalism.  In her article she discusses collaborative learning communities and the importance of having students connect and share in a variety of different environments.  I also loved how she specifically mentioned that it is important to know when and when not appropriate to use IM shorthand.  (I liked this because I have a very real aversion to receiving a message that starts with the letters ‘R U...’) (Edutopia). My goals as an educator would be to make sure I am always emulating top notch digital citizenship with any communication I have with them or their parents.  I would also talk to them about the ethics of digital citizenship and how that relates to the music industry and copyright laws.  But those thoughts are for a blog post of another day.


Edutopia.  www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citzenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis


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