Last week I began unfolding the four “themes” that will guide our 1:1 Tablet PC implementation:

• Information Management and Research
• Digital Citizenship
• Communication and Collaboration in a Global World
• Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Design

The first, Information Management and Research, seeks to provide our students with a unified research strategy. The second theme, Digital Citizenship, seeks to teach our students appropriate technology behavior.

In their book Digital Citizenship in Schools, Gerald Bailey and Mike Ribble raise the importance of the issue:

“Today, billions of people all over the planet interact using various technologies.
This interaction has created a digital society that affords its members opportunities for education, employment, entertainment, and social interaction. As in any society, it is expected that digital citizens act in a certain way—according to accepted norms, rules, and laws. Most of today’s students are entirely comfortable with technology, but are they using it appropriately? Do they understand their roles and responsibilities in digital society? How can teachers help students become responsible digital citizens?”

It’s clear that we have an obligation to make digital citizenship part of the fabric of our school’s culture. For this to occur, however, we must (1) come to understand the elements of digital citizenship, (2) emigrate to the “digital world” where our students reside, and (3) develop a sustainable approach to citizenship that involves students, teachers, and parents.

The Elements of Digital Citizenship

For many, the concept of digital citizenship is limited to Internet safety and cyberbullying. While these are certainly important topics, the issue of citizenship is multifaceted. Bailey and Ribble have identified nine general areas or elements that define digital behavior, organized into three general categories:

Student Learning and Academic Performance
1. Digital Access: full electronic participation in society
2. Digital Literacy: the process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology
3. Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information

School Environment and Student Behavior
4. Digital Security & Safety: electronic precautions to guarantee safety/physical well-being in a digital technology world
5. Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure
6. Digital Rights and Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world

Student Life Outside the School Environment
7. Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods
8. Digital Health and Wellness: physical and psychological well-being
9. Digital Law: rights and restrictions

These elements, whether related to learning, behavior, or general well-being, can serve as a framework for helping our students become responsible citizens. To move from planning to execution, however, requires that we come to understand and appreciate our students’ digital world.

Exploring Our Students’ World

You cannot teach what you do not understand, and experience is the best teacher. While “citizenship” is certainly familiar territory, digital citizenship is a foreign concept to many adults. Why? We have yet to enter and experience the online world in the same manner as our students.

I’ve addressed this before, but the Frontline documentary “Growing Up Online” provides an excellent window into how the Internet is transforming the experience of childhood. Our students’ digital world, which Frontline describes as being “largely hidden from parents and teachers,” is one that many adults fail to comprehend because they do not know it exists. Why? Because as I noted in a recent post, we have yet to embrace the “light” afforded by the information age.

Consider these statistics from the Pew Internet & American Life Project concerning the general adult population:

• 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile applications
• Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
• 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment
• 10% use information gadgets, but find it a hassle
• 49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others bristle at electronic connectivity

I’m not suggesting that we need to become mobile technology gurus and/or addicted to the Internet, but it is no longer acceptable to simply dismiss the need to participate in and understand students’ online activity in the name of a generation gap; we have to meet them where they live. And by “we” I mean teachers and parents.

An Inclusive, Sustainable Approach

Guiding principles and knowledgeable teachers are not enough to ensure our students become good digital citizens; parents must take a learned and active role in the process. The concerns surrounding students’ online behavior typically involve their “after-hours” activities, and although we can inform and educate in the classroom ad nauseam, it is the guidance and conversations that occur within the home that will make the greatest impact. For this to occur, however, requires a communication shift.

Parent forums, coffees, luncheons, and the like are useful but missing one key ingredient; parent-child interaction. We talk to parents and hope they will talk to their children. We instruct students and hope they will carry the conversation back to the dinner table. We need to create sustainable opportunities to directly engage all three stakeholders: teacher, parent, and student.

Our middle school is currently in the process of addressing this need, and while it would be premature to share our plans at this point, we are committed to building a parent partnership that utilizes the nine elements, moves us into the online world, and makes digital citizenship an issue for the classroom as well as the living room. It’s a lofty and challenging endeavor, and one that we must meet successfully.

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Posted: 04|15|08 at 6:13 pm. Filed under: 1:1, Digital Citizenship.
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