I feel that linked to digital citizenship is also some basic human morals and beliefs on how we treat one another. When a person goes online, especially on social media, there are three areas they can take advantage of when dealing with others. The first one is access. Most people have 24/7 access to being online. When I remove electronics from the lives of my 12, 14 and 15 year old, they act as if the world is coming to an end. I have taken away their ability to keep their "streak" going on Snapchat or feed their dragon who will now die in Dragonquest or take their ability to play with their clan in Overwatch. They also cannot talk with their friends online which seems like cruel and unusual punishment to them. Their lives are so entrenched in their virtual world, they feel like I've taken a piece of their life away when we have to cut their online time back. The next one is ambiguity. Ambiguity is when an act or even words can be interpreted in more than one way. On the internet, this can lead to confusion or the person who made the comment can lead the other person away from the truth. The last way is anonymity. This is when someone takes on a completely different persona online than they are in real life. For example, a middle-aged man can pretend they are a young teen girl to lewer younger kids to do something they normally wouldn't do. As a parent, this is extremely scary for me. I have a 12 year old son with special needs and is delayed with his social skills. I have seen him many times not be aware of who is a stranger and who is a friend. He thinks just because he knows their first name they are his friend. I can see him being taken advantage of easily.
Who should teach digital citizenship and why? Ultimately in a perfect world, it should be the parents but unfortunately, there are many parents out there that need to be educated themselves on digital citizenship so like with many other things most of this training falls to the schools. This year in my school, the technology team broke up topics we thought were crucial for every student to know. We then divided them into where we thought it would be grade level appropriate or content appropriate. In my case, teaching music, we thought at the middle school level it would be appropriate for them to know copyright laws, fair use in education and how to access and cite works on Creative Commons for any multimedia projects they may be using. Each teacher also teaches appropriate etiquette and expectations for their classroom. We also have schoolwide expectations that are revisited in every class depending on the lesson. I feel strongly that the classroom is the place to teach digital citizenship. If we expect for our students to go into the work environment, these are skills that are going to crucial to their future.
I would love to see more parents get involved with educating themselves on what is going on in social media with their children. I think many would be shocked. When I explain to other parents all of the safeguards we have with our kids they think I am overprotective, but some of the things I've found on my own kids' devices have shocked me. It is not necessarily my kids but some of the things that are sent to them. My kids know we have monitoring software, their devices shut off 1/2 hour before bed time and we do check. They can use us as an out by saying, "Please don't send me that. My mom monitors everything and she would be so mad if she knew I had that on my phone."
I think protecting our kids is one of our top priorities and I'm thankful for the education they all get at school on digital citizenship.
