Digital Citizenship, the Digital Native & the School Community

When I was a kid, born & raised in the 60's, we didn't have computers...not in our schools, homes or anywhere else we would go.  We didn't have our own personal phone or smartphone. In fact, in my house, we had one landline phone that was for Mom or Dad to use.  Not even my older brothers and sister could use it.  We understood that the phone connected by wire, to a wall in our home, was so expensive, that only responsible adults would operate it, and...we were okay with that! It wasn't until I was 10 that I was allowed to answer it. I remember my folks sat us all down at the kitchen table and talked about the proper way to answer it...using proper diction and polite words. I guess you could say that that was my first experience learning how to be a good digital citizen.

Today, kids are pretty much born with an iPad in one hand and a smartphone in the other.  They access apps, play games, text, talk, skype, make videos, snap pictures, share their content and on and on.  They learn these things by tinkering or instinctively clicking all on their own. They click here and then click there and use or reuse the content without thinking twice.  Most haven't had that conversation about the consequences of their clicks or the importance about proper digital behavior or 'netiquette'.  This generation has become known as 'Digital Natives', because they have never known a day that some form of personal technology exists and that these devices are available for them to use, much of the time, without careful supervision or limits. We can say we've moved into the 21st Century technologically speaking, but the question now is what is our level of digital responsibility? To what lengths are we accountable for our digital clicks?  I wonder how many have thought about this or communicated it with their own children.

I think it's time for us to start and keep an ongoing dialogue about 'Digital Citizenship'.  But let's take a step back for a second.  I think we can now remove the word 'digital' from this title and just have a conversation about "citizenship", because how we act offline should be mirrored behavior for when we are online, right?  What we say and do in any sphere of our life should be the same...thoughtful, polite, inspirational, for learning & growing, for research & development and to champion the global greater good.  

So...how do we do this?  I've thought about this at great length and think we need to start from Day 1 having this conversation as a total school community.  Everyone needs to be on board, take personal ownership, buy into it and agree.

Here are some questions that might be useful to start this conversation:

• Who is responsible for the technology or the device we're assigned?

• Who is in charge of the account we're assigned?

• Who is in charge of our passwords and password protection?

• Should we set limits on picture or video use and, if so, what does this look like?

• Should we set a tone for communicating online and when it's appropriate to communicate online? What does this look like?

• What should the consequences be for off-task or misbehavior on or offline?

• Should there be limits for personal and school related use on school-assigned technology?

• Who is responsible for the physical device...maintaining proper charge, storage, etc.

• (And this, I think is an important question) What is the acceptable use policy for students at home, do they have to power down at a certain point and what are the consequences at home for not abiding by family rules?  Should we mirror some of these practices at school?

• And lastly.....exactly what age or grade level should we begin this conversation?

I think it's time to start talking about Digital Citizenship.