Defining Digital Citizenship

11/17/2020

        With continuing my master's degree program, my next course, Digital Citizenship, through Lamar University, started this week. After participating in Monday night's webinar, some insights that I gained were the importance of the digital footprint that a person who holds a presence in the digital world leaves behind. More importantly, this week's learning has been focused on the importance of what it means to be a Digital Citizen. I have learned that there are many elements and components in being a good digital citizen. According to Ribble (2015), "Digital Citizenship is the continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible, and empowered technology use." We live in a world where technology is continuously evolving and is ever-changing and is honestly changing the way we live our lives. Everything we need to know or need access to is right at our fingertips. In some cases, the benefits and liabilities of life online are no longer limited to physical borders that we have always been accustomed to. Now, in this day and age, it is our job to set the standard of what a moral digital citizen looks like and the importance of advocating for more digital citizenship education opportunities for the generations to come.

        Ribble (2015), classifies Digital Citizenship into three categories composed of nine elements total on how they can affect students' learning and behavior both in and outside the classroom. The nine elements include digital access, law, fluency, commerce, communication and collaboration, rights and responsibility, security and privacy, health and welfare, and etiquette. The three categories are composed of safety, savvy, and social. Working on an elementary campus, digital rights and responsibilities, etiquette, communication, and health and welfare are just a few of the nine elements of digital citizenship that are particularly important to me and what I try to instill in the students in my class. Particularly now, more than ever since we have transitioned a lot of our learning and curriculum to online environments. One of the most important values to me personally, both on and off the screen, is integrity. In other words, doing what is right when no one is watching and treating people the way you want to be treated. With the majority of the learning that is happening online, this has been a real struggle.

        Like I mentioned above, I work on an elementary campus, and digital citizenship education has been built into our curriculum throughout the year to make it more impactful for our students as a whole early on. We have implemented many of these elements in our school's "Computers" specials. Then, they are reinforced in the classroom and during our Character Education class in the morning. With students at younger ages gaining more access to the internet in this day and age, this has helped them make more meaningful connections to their role as digital citizens individually.

        Ultimately, after reflecting on this week's valuable information, I would define a digital citizen as any person who uses technology to obtain a digital presence and publishes various information online for a variety of acceptable and appropriate purposes. It offers the importance of reminding ourselves how we must behave when working in a digital environment. As a community, it is in our best interest to abide by such guidelines to certify the lasting quality of the digital world we have built.

References:

Ribble, M. (2015). Nine Elements. Digital Citizenship. https://www.digitalcitizenship.net/nine-elements.html

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