Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship is about understanding and participating in the digital world. It means advocating for equal rights, treating others with respect, and not causing harm. We should teach these skills because they are necessary to prevent bullying, scams, and privacy violations. Hands-on learning and tools like infographics and scavenger hunts can help teach these skills. It's important to look for the good in the internet and be aware of potential scams. By educating ourselves and others, we can be responsible digital citizens. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, whichever time you're listening to this. I just wanted to come and talk to you, as a digital citizen, on what digital citizenship is and what it means to transverse the many scapes of the Internet in this day and age. What is digital citizenship? Being a digital citizen is someone who is able to understand and fully participate in the digital world. They have the technical and social skills that enable a person to be successful and safe. So let's dig down deep into what that means and why it should be taught and what it might mean to you. So, a citizen in the digital age is someone who advocates for equal human rights for all, treats others with curiosity, and never bullies. They do not damage or steal other people's property. They communicate clearly, respectfully, and with empathy. They actively pursue education and develop habits for lifelong learning. They spend and manage money responsibly. Uphold basic human rights of privacy, freedom of speech, etc. They protect themselves and others from harm. And they proactively promote their own physical and mental health. That is according to the ISTE. We should teach these skills because they exist for a reason. Advocating for rights means that someone's had their rights trampled upon in the digital space. Treating others with curiosity and courteousness means that someone has been bullied, someone's property has been damaged, someone has been disrespectful and unempathetic, people have actively not sought out learning, they have been bamboozled or scammed out of money, human rights have been traversed or trampled upon, people have been harmed, and mental and physical health have been a problem. So making sure that all of these things don't happen means that you should learn and teach these skills. The tools I might use to teach it, I love a good infographic, I love a good pamphlet, a good PowerPoint presentation, but most importantly, I love hands-on learning. By learning hands-on, students and learners are able to see firsthand what the problems are on the Internet and how there could be solutions that make the whole space a better place. Looking for the good in the Internet would be a good place to start as a digital citizen. A scavenger hunt has always been a favorable means of mine. Find a place where you can be helpful for someone else. Add to a blog or help someone out via questions and answer sites. Making sure that your money is safe, making sure you understand that certain things look like a scam, certain people will want to scam you. Having workshops and workbooks and workbook pages dedicated to what bad things can look like can also help. I would model it with a phishing scam. IT departments often do this. They'll send a phishing email going, you've won $1,000, or you get a $30 Amazon gift card, but just if you give us a little information. With students, I would absolutely be happy to not share their information if they were to so input it in a phishing scam or at least a practice phishing scam. In all of this, a digital citizen is someone who understands how to get around on the Internet without causing harm to themselves or others. Making sure that harm doesn't happen just means that someone was educated on all the ways the harm can happen. And as fortunate as it sounds, it's a part of our new life. So hopefully being able to model it for them with scams that I put on them or even just looking for what not to look for and what to look for would be a great way to make a good digital citizen. Thank you.