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EDUCATION TRENDS
Teaching Digital Citizenship
03 July 2022/ By Zineb DJOUB
What is digital citizenship and how should it be taught?
The use of technology has become a necessity in our fast-changing world. As the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report reveals people are spending more time than ever using connected tech in 2022. So, now the focus is no longer on ‘the digital divide’ between those who had access to technology and those who didn’t. But, a new divide emerged between those who passively consume digital content and those who actively create.
Our students should create their content (video games, blogs, YouTube channels, etc.) and learn instead of spending hours watching videos on their phones. They need to engage with digital technologies more positively, using them properly and effectively. Therefore, it’s necessary to empower students with the tools and information needed to navigate digital environments safely and responsibly.
To do so, educators should also focus on fostering the development of digital citizenship in their students.
What is digital citizenship?
Digital citizenship can be understood as norms of behaviour regarding the use of digital technologies.
Such use is not limited to merely receiving and consuming digital goods and content but also is manifested in the creation of digital content, tools, apps, codes, and practices.
In fact, to be an active user of technology, digital skills, awareness, tolerance, and responsibilities are required.
Therefore, digital citizenship includes the following essential elements:
Digital literacy: This is the ability to access, critically use, synthesize, and evaluate information online and share it with others.
Knowledge and critical understanding: Knowledge and critical understanding of the self and the world: of cultures, history, religions, politics, human rights, economies, media, etc.
Ethics: These include awareness of inappropriate online behaviours’ effects, valuing human dignity and human rights, cultural diversity, democracy, justice, and fairness.
Independent and social skills: These encompass the necessary skills to make decisions, get more flexible, and adapt to different challenging situations, besides showing empathy, respect, tolerance of ambiguity, and communicating effectively with others.
So, digital citizens possess the necessary literacy skills to engage with digital technologies and also the attitudes and values that support them to thrive both on and offline.
How to teach digital citizenship?
Digital citizenship does not only help students engage effectively in the digital society, but it can also foster their well-being, social development, and inclusion in digital and real-world environments.
Therefore, it is so necessary to integrate digital citizenship education within our teaching even in case this is not part of the curriculum’s goals.
How?
Here are some major tips to put such a goal into practice:
1. Teach digital and media literacy
To become digital citizens, students should have the ability to navigate the digital world: find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create digital content (digital literacy), besides understanding, interpreting, and responding critically to media messages (media literacy).
To this end, we need to incorporate digital and media literacy into the curriculum. Such a process involves awareness-raising, teaching, and providing practice.
Students should understand how the Internet works: how to search for information, user data, and cookies, how thumbnails and clickbait work, how to maintain safety and privacy online, what is legal and illegal online, etc.
They should also learn about the pros and cons of visibility on social media, how people’s ideas and behaviours online can affect theirs, what to share, how and why, how to handle digital communication, identify and anticipate cyberbullying, and how social media distorts reality.
You can bring videos or texts raising such issues for students to read, discuss, search, or do projects. Expose Facts, research evidence, and real stories to show the value of that teaching content and support students to figure it out better.
Also, share your opinions with them and allow opportunities for reflecting, cooperating, sharing, and problem-solving practices.
2. Teach social and emotional learning
Integrate SEL activities throughout your lessons to foster students’ digital well-being.
Focus on teaching empathy to help them understand how people talk and behave online and how they should deal with cyberbullying situations. Introduce topics of tolerance, prejudice, and human rights and encourage openness and collaboration.
Use videos, discussion questions and scenarios that engage students in using critical thinking skills to analyse and respond to those situations.
In addition, teach students to be self-aware: to identify their emotions, reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and encourage them to take actions to grow.
You can ask them to journal their emotions, describing their feelings before, while, and after engaging with digital technologies. Invite them to share with you and their peers how they are using their devices, what they like and don’t like to do, their screen time, and how such use affects their emotions, beliefs, and attitudes.
To help them become more self-aware, you can also provide them with reflective worksheets to identify their feelings, actions, and screen time whenever they interact online. This will also make them more responsible for their actions.
3. Get parents involved
Parents also should help their children engage safely and responsibly in the digital society. Their support through ongoing communication, control, and guidance is crucial to developing good digital citizens.
Therefore, we need to share regularly with parents digital citizenship tips and resources.
If your school has a digital citizenship programme, make parents aware of it and provide them with the resources to help introduce and reinforce healthy habits and skills at home. Communicate regularly to unveil concerns, and set common goals and action plans.
Although engaging in the digital society can be fun, entertaining, and a source of learning, it is also associated with ethical issues and risks. So, as educators, we need to help our students get actively engaged and equipped with the skills and capabilities required to use technology in a safe and responsible way. This is by focusing on digital citizenship education.
More resources about digital citizenship
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