The following websites are great resources for students, teachers, and parents to begin discussions on digital citizenship.
http://www.netsafeutah.org/kids/index.html
http://www.commonsensemedia.org
Friday, February 21, 2014
This blog serves as a practice exercise in EDM 510 to create and contribute to blogs.
The following websites are great resources for students, teachers, and parents to begin discussions on digital citizenship.
http://www.netsafeutah.org/kids/index.html
http://www.commonsensemedia.org
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I think that one of the most important digital citizenship topics to help students understand is plagiarism. As a teacher and librarian, I have always worked strictly with 8th graders and high school students, so I should probably say up front that I'm not sure what kind of discussions (if any) younger students receive about this topic. However, I'm astounded each year to see how many students have no idea what plagiarism is or how to avoid it - truly a disturbing thought when I know that many of them will be entering college soon, where the consequences for plagiarizing are much more serious than receiving a zero on an assignment! I don't think that students understand that their "digital footprint" will follow them throughout their lives, or I think we would see much less posting of videos, images, and inappropriate comments on social media sites. I would be curious to know if students even consider social media a part of their "footprint."
ReplyDeleteSo interesting you posted this, Jessica. I just completed a plagiarism lesson with fourth and fifth grade students at my school and many of them had NO idea what plagiarism was... and still didn't see how it was wrong after I explained the definition to them! I found a great video on Discovery Education that showed them about copyright and cut/pasting work from a source into a document. They then began to understand why it is wrong. (I also pretended to use one of their drawings as my own giving the person who drew it no credit.)
DeleteSadly, many of them do not understand about their digital footprint either. We have a very big focus at our school on this. I used a tube of toothpaste as an example of this. Once, I "squeezed" the toothpaste out of the tube, we talked about it is virtually impossible to get it back into the tube. They could identify with that example.
The Yik Yak app has been all over the news this past week. I had never even heard of it, and neither had my son. It is the most recent app used for cyber bullying and has at least one student in serious trouble for posting about "shooting up" Mcgill Toolen high school. If you are not familiar with it, this app lets people post anonymously and only people within a few miles of your location can see it. The app does show the location of where a person was when they posted. It has been causing chaos for some schools recently. I downloaded it to check it out and most of the posts were jokes, but there was some highly offensive content as well. Students have to be aware of the consequences of their actions. It is crucial now more than ever that kids understand the importance of actions, especially on line. Those mistakes will never go away. It is really important that we as educators recognize this as a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed.
ReplyDeleteWow, Deanna! I did hear mention of it on the news the other day! This is just one example of why it is so important to pay attention to what is out there AND make sure that students see the importance of being responsible in what they say/post/ text. Cyberbullying is easier to be anonymous than regular bullying which I believe makes for a bigger problem in the long run. Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAs a lower elementary teacher, I probably view what is most important to teach students about digital citizenship a little differently. My students first need to learn about personal information. When viewing the first link above, www.netsafeutah.org/kids, I noticed that this was a topic listed for both grades K-2 and 3-5. I really liked this site and how it gave good kid friendly explanations. Younger students do not always realize that things like their phone number and address are private personal information when using digital media. It is also important to teach them not to trust people online. It is so easy for a person to lie about their identity and their intentions online. Hopefully by teaching students these lessons at a young age, they will be safer as a teenager on social media. It is scary the way students post where they are going to be on Facebook for all 300+ of their "friends" to see not to mention the friends of friends that can also see. A stalker can easily track a person through a Facebook page that does not have privacy settings in place. On the same idea of social medias like Facebook, the content that students often post is also inappropriate. Unfortunately, I do not think students have a solid grasp of the digital footprint they leave behind. The more this idea can be taught, the more likely we are to have better educated students on this topic.
ReplyDeleteCyber bullying seems to be a major problem for all students, even higher education students. Unfortunately, many students who comment on others' "social media" pages do not see their actions as being one a bully would display. However, this will eventually change especially with the onset of certain laws made available to aid victims. As a future media specialist, I would definitely assign students' assignments/activities that would force them to become familiar with such laws. This would hopefully decrease the act of cyber bullying if students are made aware of the characteristics of cyber bullying and the consequences.
ReplyDelete