Week 3: Digital Citizenship

Voki

In this class, we are talking about teaching technology in our classrooms. We cannot go any further into this course until we, as the teachers understand how important it is to teach our students digital citizenship. As teachers we need to keep our students safe. Technology can be safe if we use it in the right way. All of us are effected my technology in some way, whether it is using Facebook to connect with family and friends or making a Skype account to talk with family across the country. It's important to model behaviors when using technology with our students. Students need to understand how dangerous technology can be if it's not used correctly.
On a teacher stand-point, if you would like to know how harmful technology can be, click here. This is a story of a teacher that made it clear how important digital citizenship is, how to understand it and WHY to enforce this to students. This teacher was a victim of another student. This student made a Facebook account of this teacher, with real pictures and information. This student then sent out friend requests to STUDENTs and was making unprofessional comments on other students pages. Let me reiterate, this was not the teacher, it was a student pretending to be her. 
This is just one unsettling example of why it is so important for teachers/parents/students to understand the importance of digital citizenship!
The smaller your digital footprint, the safer you are!!

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With this being said, technology should still be promoted in an educational setting.
"In today's world, most students are attached to mobile devices of some kind whether in or out of school. When policy and practice are aligned, the amazing possibilities presented by this fact surely outweigh the challenges. Creating that alignment is our first step,"
That quote was written by The Journal: Transforming Education Through Technology. In schools today, we see students in elementary grades, middle and high school that are bringing in mobile devices. We need to use those mobile devices for the better, bring education to their personal technology to promote their digital citizenship. 

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Have them understand the importance that sending a text, tweet, Facebook message or picture in an instant can be potentially harmful. Students do not understand fully the importance of digital citizenship or their digital footprint. Students need to understand that the cons can overcome the pro's if technology is not used correctly. Using cell phones, tablets and iPods can hopefully benefit and endorse better behavior if used in the classroom educationally!