DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IS MORE THAN LIVING BY A SET OF RULES

I just read an interesting article about continually redefining the concept of Digital Citizenship. She asserts that we initially responded to the concept with a “first responder”, trying to protect our children with rules and guidelines.As the concept of connected-ness grows and changes our educational landscape, it becomes even more important to question how we are presenting the concept of digital citizenship to our children. And more importantly, are we being good digital citizens ourselves?

I type this as a listen to my own two children behind me frolic on their computers. They are laughing out loud, two-fingered typing with friends across the globe, and occasionally sharing what they experience in short bursts. There are four people in my house right now and we are all staring into an electronic device, yet still interacting with one another, while simultaneously interacting with hundreds of others online. Pretty deep stuff, and completely incomprehensible a little under 15 years ago when I first started teaching.

The educational landscape has changed considerably since then. Fundamentally, my teaching strategies have developed, matured, and strengthened. The core of what I learned in college about the lesson cycle and pedagogy are relatively still useful, but the students themselves are very different than the ones I taught fresh out of college. I think that is forever going to be a challenge in education, though. That’s why as educators we cannot be content with using the same ways we always have. As the kids change, so must we.