Digital_Citizenship Home Page
Digital Citizenship Elements' Definitions
What are the proper ways to use communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone, and instant messaging?
What rules and etiquette are appropriate for the use of digital communication technologies?
Pew/Internet Research Reports
Spam
Why Am I Getting All This Spam
TeacherTube: Bulletin Board
TeacherTube Horizon Project 2007: The Future of Social Networking
Digital Communication
Video showing how much of an impact texting is starting to have on children and youth and how involved they can get, missing the simple things that once seemed to be the obvious decision
Digital Communication Issues:
- E-mail
- Cell phones
- Videoconferencing
- Instant messaging
- Text messaging
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Sexting
Examples of Inappropriate Digital Communication
- Creating MySpace or Facebook pages with enough information for anyone to contact you easily.
- Cyber-bullying students through e-mails, blogs, and other social networking sources.
- Insisting on video-conferencing with someone at work
- Posting pictures or videos of others without asking permission.
- Pretending to be someone else and sending inappropriate communication.
- Using poor grammar and inappropriate slang or abbreviations in formal writing.
Examples of Appropriate Digital Communication
- Creating MySpace or Facebook pages that do not contain personal information that would allow someone to contact you easily.
- Use of cell phones for text messaging and talking to people only at appropriate times of the day.
- Personal blogs and wikis should be shared only with family and friends.
- Obtain permission from others before posting their pictures or videos.
- Only use slang or abbreviations when sending digital messages. Use formal writing for all other communication.
Digital Communication
Scenario
Susan is a 7th grader. She is not one of the "popular" girls in school. She has few friends and often eats lunch by herself. She is not particularly outgoing herself, but other students don't always reach out to her either. Susan is an excellent student who gets her work done and doesn't cause any problems...a great middle-school student, which her teachers often say to her and her parents. Susan does have a computer at home and has joined several chat rooms as a way to meet people and talk to them. She finds this is a very non-threatening way to meet other kids her age. She feels free to talk openly about almost anything with her chat room friends. Susan's computer is in her room, and she spends a great deal of time in the evenings on her computer. Until recently, Susan's grades have been very good. Lately, Susan has complained to her parents that school is getting harder and not as interesting to her. Despite her complaints, Susan's parents are impressed with the amount of time she spends on the computer doing her school work (or so they think). Susan has met a "special friend" on the Internet in one of the chat rooms, and they have decided to finally meet at the mall this weekend. Susan is nervous about meeting this person face-to-face, but believes she knows enough about the person and that this meeting will be the continuation of a great friendship.
One day Susan's mother decides to get on the computer to look for a recipe. As she tries to log in, Susan's computer takes her directly to a chat room login screen. Susan's mother decides this seems a little odd, and waits until Susan comes home from school to get on the computer to get the recipe she is looking for.
When Susan returns from school, her mom tells her she was trying to get on the computer, but couldn't because Susan has it set to go to a chat room. Her mom asks her to set the computer up so she can get her recipe for supper. Her mom doesn't ask about the chat room.
When Susan returns from school, her mom tells her that she tried to get on the computer but couldn't. She explains what was on the screen, and asks her about her use of chat rooms. She tries to approach the discussion with Susan in a non-threatening manner, but she is concerned. She tries to find out from Susan her frequency and why she is going into the chat rooms. She then talks to her daughter about safety issues related to social networking. She sees that Oprah Winfrey is having a show the next day on social networking, and suggests that they watch it together to learn more about it. Despite Susan's resistance, she agrees to watch it with her Mom. Watching the show generates a heart-to-heart discussion with her daughter. The discussion reveals Susan's plans to meet a friend from the chat room at the mall later that week. Susan and her mom decide to go together to the mall to meet this friend.
Scenario: Lora Caves
Macey is a tenth grader in high school. She is a friendly young lady and participates in several activities in and out of high school including dance and student council. For the most part, Macey gets along with her classmates and has a group of friends that she considers great friends. There are a couple of students that Macey has never gotten along with ever since grade school. Their personalities and life styles have always been different. Even though they are in the same activites, the girls have different friends and social circles. As Macey was walking into the high school, she noticed several groups of students looking at her and then laughing as they were looking at their cell phones. Macey got the feeling that the joke was about her but she held her head high and kept on walking. All day long, she noticed classmates whispering and laughing. She shared these feelings with her friends and they vowed to help her figure out what was going on. This continued for several days. Once in a while, a student would make a rude comment to her that she wasn't sure how to take. Finally, one of her friends received a text-message from another classmate. The text-message was about Macey and had been going around the school.
Macey immediately finds the girls that she thinks started the rumors. She yells and screams at them in the hall and makes a big scene.
Macey asks her friend if she can borrow her phone so that she can show the counselor and the principal. She takes the phone to them and shares her story. She asks for their help and guidance in solving the problem.
How can teachers make a difference?
Teachers need to provide information on the positive and negative sides of social networking. They should also identify some of the ramifications of social networking (employers checking MySpace or Facebook pages, people disguised as something they are not, cyber-bulling, etc.). Teachers should provide students with information to help them make wise decisions about their involvement in social networks.
Teachers should teach the difference between formal and informal writing. Students should also know the expectations when given a writing assignment. For example, students can use poor grammar and slang when sending a text-message but need to use correct grammar when writing an English paper.
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