Providing a Complete Suite of IT Solutions for Education
Digital Citizenship
Resources on Netsmartz.org
Digital Citizenship is important in education today as we are all rapidly moving towards new and diverse technology that students and educators will have to learn how to use and share with safely and effectively.
​
Click on the picture to the right to go to the website: http://www.netsmartz.org/Training to learn more.
Resources from Netsmartz.org : Click the icons to go to the resource link.
This resource is a Tip Sheet, or Cheat Sheet for students to make sure they are being safe online. It has specific and direct examples for a student to follow while making their way through the internet. This is mainly a document that would be going along with another lesson on the netsmartz.org website and would be used as a reinforcer and possibly a laminated document for each student to make check marks on as an assignment. Also it can be screenshotted into Microsoft word and made into a clickable document to have students investigate a list of websites to see which ones are reliable or not.
​
​For using the Tip Sheet on Evaluating Internet Resources, a teacher could post them around the room, or near the computers in the classroom if it is set up that way. Instruct the class on how to use it after instructing a lesson on how to be safe on the internet by using the document. The instructor should show different examples of websites to avoid and what links to click and not to click. A simple trick to know what is the correct link is to hover over it with the mouse and check the lower left or right hand corners of the window to see the web url pop up before clicking on it. Websites that are not what they seem can be picked out in this way before clicking on to them and viewing inappropriate material or unsafe material.
Six degrees of information is a video resource that has a cyber detective finding information about students through six total clicks of a computer mouse. They find vast amounts of information about the students and are shocked that so much information can be found with only a few clicks of a mouse. It is important for students to know what they should be sharing and not sharing online and this is a video that shows how easily information about a student can be found in the matter of a few seconds to a few minutes.
​
Six Degrees of information is geared toward middle and high school students and how much information that an investigator can find out on a group of students within six clicks. I have always personally challenged a student to find me online if they badger me to let them know my web presence and they can never find me. This is probably not the best exercise in the classroom but you could have students challenge each other to find the most about their classmates and show them how to appropriately lock them down. I challenge students in college to find me, not grade school.
You Can’t Take It Back is a short video about information gone wrong to cyberbullying and shows that information put online can be taken in whatever way the user wishes it to be taken regardless of the users intentions, or jokes. The video shows a student who has posted for his friends to rate girls in school and it quickly gets out of hand when word gets out who has been rated and what has been said about them online. It also includes different subtopics that a teacher can use such as, not sharing information, not cyberbullying and not being rude or misogynistic towards either sex.
​
You Can't Take It Back is a stark reminder that digital media can be spread and used to the users content. Any information that is put online as a joke or not can be spread far and wide within a few clicks of the mouse. A quick copy and paste can open a link to the world and not just an intended select few. A teacher should demonstrate how cyberbullying effects students and adults and use this video to demonstrate how much it can effect one person and a whole group of people at once to reinforce the ideas of a lesson. This would work best after instruction on what cyber bullying is and with a note sheet to go along with it as well as an activity for after the video on how it made the students feel and how they would not do something to their peers as well.
Video Examples
Appropriate Example of a Digital Citizenship Video Resource.
This video was created by Mr. Chuck Lynch using Binumu.com and the resource digitalcitizenship.net for students to learn how to be a proper digital citizen. Students can refer back to both the websites to research the information and make their own videos as well for a project.
Inappropriate Example of a Digital Citizenship Video Resource.
This video is a spoof on digital citizenship from the British Comedy sitcom called: The IT Crowd, that ran for four seasons and a final wrap up episode. The show can be found on internet video resources such as: Netlifx.com and HULU.com and VUDU.com and illustrates different computer and tech issues working in a computer department and the social aspects of the characters in the show and how they are portrayed do to current stigma of being a Geek, or Nerd and working in a Technology Department. It is a good show to show clips for student instruction.
Standard Equivalent:
​
ISTE-C Standard: 5. Digital Citizenship. Performance Indicator: b. Model and facilitate safe, healthy, legal, and ethical uses of digital information and technologies
Charles Lynch [ Instructional Technology ]
