Digital Citizenship in the Classroom

 The following questions/prompts are guiding this reflection:

1. Share your thoughts on the teaching or training of digital citizenship / etiquette / rules in your classroom/work environment. 
2. Is it embedded in the curriculum, its own unit, or something that you do not formally teach/train/manage? Explain why you follow this path.
3. Should digital citizenship be a part of the school-wide (work environment) curriculum?  Who should teach it or train learners/employees? How? 
4. Any other thoughts you want to share about the importance (or not) of digital citizenship?

In my opinion, the teaching of rules and etiquette regarding digital citizenship is of critical importance.  This week's reading really resonated with me, particularly the chapter from Alone Together.  Young people today are growing up in a very confusing, overwhelming world, and like the book describes, they are dealing with a host of physical and mental health issues related to their reality.  I see this with my students all the time.  When I ask them about their own relationship with technology, many of them are cognizant of the fact that it is unhealthy, yet they don't know how to change it or feel like they can't.  Technology has given us so much, but it has also taken away a lot, and again, as the book explores, young people in particular feel an immense pressure to maintain a feverishly active presence on social media, and this ironically often leaves them feeling alone and depressed.  Similarly, many of them engage in online cruelty, not necessarily thinking about the real life ramifications of this behavior.  Finally, and this relates back to our reading from last week, because their prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed yet, they do not have the same level of inhibitions as adults do (not that adults don't also exhibit uninhibited behavior online), but teenagers are more likely to engage in impulsive behavior online, whether that's bullying, spending money, or posting inappropriate images of videos of themselves or others.  They have an infinite world of information at their fingertips, and this can be extremely detrimental if it's not managed properly.

I do not teach a specific unit on digital citizenship, but I do embed it into what I am teaching as much as possible.  Last year, I altered the topic of a previous unit to make it more about digital citizenship.  I teach something called a synthesis essay to my 11th graders.  In this unit, students are exposed to a wide variety of sources that explore various viewpoints on a particular controversial issue, and after sorting through all of the sources, they come up with their own argument about it and have to use evidence to support their argument and address the other side.  Last year, I made the topic about our relationships with our smartphones, and students were extremely engaged.  We explored articles about the science of how our phones impact our brains, how they have helped people with disabilities, and everything in between.  We had a lot of very interesting and fruitful discussions about the various issues surrounding this very complex issue, and it seemed like students genuinely thought long and hard about their own online behavior and addiction to their phones.  My colleagues who teach 9th grade do a more explicit unit on digital citizenship when they teach a research assignment, and I certainly talk about it in other contexts as well whenever I am asking students to look something up.  I also weave it in with current events and literature whenever possible.

I do think that perhaps we need a more comprehensive, formal teaching and training of rules and etiquette regarding digital citizenship, and it should probably begin as early as late elementary school since it seems like younger and younger kids are getting smartphones, or are at least around them all the time.  I am painfully aware of how much my own kids see me on my phone, and it's something I try and avoid using around them as much as I can.  Common Sense Education has a lot of great resources, including videos and curriculum, for beginning this work at the elementary level, and I believe this is something administrators should be talking about including on the district level.  Perhaps if students had one short activity a month or something along those lines beginning in elementary school, they would grow up better equipped to enter the digital world we all live in.  I'm sure this is already happening at a lot of schools.  I certainly hope to help guide students and teacher through this challenging work when I become a Library Media Specialist, and I would imagine many LMS are currently doing this work with young learners, as are elementary school teachers.

My final thoughts regarding this topic really come back to the themes Sherry Turtle explores in Alone Together.  Young people are enamored with technology, as we all are, and they are a lot savvier than a lot of us are at using it.  They enjoy making videos, using Apps, etc., and there are so many exciting things we are able to teach them and explore them to that weren't previously possible.  However, it's important for us to remember that they also crave a break from using it.  It is our responsibility to use it with them and use it well, but I believe it is also our job to allow them plenty of opportunities to unplug and put pen to paper, hold a book, etc.  They want these breaks, and their brains need them as well, just as ours do.