11.5 Thing 11

Digital Citizenship is so important. Our Librarian does a wonderful job teaching digital citizenship. It is my job as the classroom teacher to continue to model and teach upon what she has taught.
I loved the diagram of the 4 areas (Literacy, Safety, Learning Strategies, and Etiquette) with the student in the middle. It really makes clear what digital citizenship includes. A great visual for parents if they are worried about their child being on the computer. Being able to show them that this is what we teach your child about the computer and digital citizenship would be so helpful.
I also liked the site that had the 9 Themes of Digital Citizenship with the definitions. It helped a lot to organize my thoughts on what I have taught my students in the past and what I need to continue with or add to.
In our school, all the grade levels have a computer lab time, PreK-5th. As the students move up, their work on the computer increases. Since I'm on the Technology Committee at my school, I tend to try more new ideas with my students. This way I'm able to report back to my team with ideas for their computer lab time. I can also give them tips that I found useful when I presented the lesson to my students.
The beginning of the year is spent on Digital Citizenship-learning about the computer (Digital Literacy) and what the proper conduct for technology use is (Digital Etiquette). It is very important for me to begin with these two areas and to continue on reviewing them as the year continues. Digital Citizenship is not something that is taught only at the beginning of the year, but through out the entire year. It is not something that is taught in 1st grade and then assumed they remember it in 2nd, but retaught year after year. It is important to do so. Not only as a review, but also because technology changes so quickly there is always something new to learn!