Digital Literacy Part 3: Teaching What it Means to be a Digital Citizen
- Ms. Patnaik
- Mar 16, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 18, 2018
This article was written in collaboration with Stefanie Partridge.
From an early age, students are living in the online world. Students make accounts to play online games. Students get email accounts at schools and create assignments online. Students access social media, they send pictures to friends, they comment on friend’s pictures - the internet gives kids a lot of power. But, to quote a famous superhero movie, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We need to teach our students how to behave in a responsible way online, to understand the power of the internet, and to appreciate the idea of a “digital footprint.”
The Ontario Ministry of Education (2013) outlines in its curriculums that while the internet is important, it is also essential that students are aware of the risks associated with it: privacy, safe and responsible use, and misuse of the internet (such as bullying). This means that as teachers, it is our duty to teach students:
Responsible internet use: discussing with children how much we should use the internet, what we should and should not use the internet for, what to do when we find something inappropriate
Creating a positive online presence: what we should and should not share on the internet
What internet abuse is: what is bullying and how do we report it
Internet safety: What we should share online, why we use passwords, how to keep our identity safe
The benefits: How we can use the internet for good
Digital Citizenship in the Classroom: Samaritans on the Digital Road
The Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB) offers the “Samaritans on the Digital Road” resource for its teachers. Inspired by Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), every grade explores a verse and its connection to “good citizenship.” Each grade has five lessons that deal with issues relevant to that age group. The wonderful resource can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/ocsb-digital-citizenship/home-1.
To demonstrate the usefulness of this resource I will use grade 1 as an example. In this grade, we explore what it means to be a good citizen, and how Jesus was a good citizen. We then learn about what a digital citizen is, and how we can be a good digital citizen. We dive into online safety, how to avoid pop-ups, and how to post appropriate pictures. We learn about blogs, and what an “online community” is, and how students can responsibly participate in an online community. As the lessons progress, students learn about what are “good sites” for their age group and purposes.
As you can see, the OCSB has done a great job of providing relevant lessons in digital literacy at a young age, while connecting with religion and other curriculums. It is also easy to build in small lessons into everyday discussions. When talking about choosing usernames/passwords for a classroom app, the teacher can talk about what makes a good username (not your real name) and password (hard to guess). Students will be using and relying on internet at school for apps, researching, and creating. Students need to learn how to use it effectively, contribute to it responsibly, and understand the power of the internet.
Why Is Digital Citizenship Important?
Some may not feel that digital citizenship is important to teach in schools; that children will naturally develop these skills as they use so much technology at home. I would argue that it is essential, and teaching how to be a good digital citizen is teaching students how to be a good world citizen. We participate in an online world, and students need to learn how to behave in that world.
A study (Jones & Mitchell, 2016) of 979 students in northern New England, aged 11 to 17 years old and fairly evenly split between those that identified as female or male, demonstrated that in the three months prior to the study, almost 36% of students were victims of online harassment. Just over 29% admitted to perpetrating harassment online, and 48.7% said they had witnessed online harassment. Children are being faced with issues surrounding digital citizenship daily. They need to be taught what it means to be a good digital citizen, and that involves knowing what to do when online harassment is witnessed.
The citizen education framework is an important part of Ontario’s Ministry of Education social studies curriculum (2013). Children do not only participate in the physical world, but in the digital world. Educators must teach and show children how to be a good and active digital citizens. When students are taught these lessons, they can use the online world to do great things, to connect to the world, to make a difference globally, and to experience a world perspective. The internet gives us endless opportunities, and when students have the skills to use it appropriately, they will achieve great things.
Stefanie Partridge is a year 2 teacher candidate at the University of Ottawa in the primary/junior division. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Kinetics and Masters of Arts in Human Kinetics. She can be found on Twitter (@Stef_Partridge) and through her website: https://spart033.wixsite.com/stefaniepartridge.
References
Jones, L.M., & Mitchell, K. J., (2016). Defining and measuring youth digital citizenship. News
media and society, 18(9), 2063-2079, retrieved from https://journals-scholarsportal-
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). Social Studies Curriculum, Grades 1-8, History &
Geography, Grades 7-8.
Ottawa Catholic School Board. (n.d.). Samaritans on the Digital Road. Retrieved from
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