Thing 11: Digital Citizenship (it's all about educating)

This past year has been a huge learning experience for me as far as technology goes. I feel like I am finally getting closer to understanding what younger people are exposed to (good and bad)on the web. A huge part of my job as a teacher is to be a guide to students, citizens in the community. The community has changed dramatically since I started teaching only 8 years ago. We are clearly a digital community (it is futile to ignore it), so keeping these digital citizens informed and providing ample opportunities to practice good citizenship appears to me to be the key as a teacher.

Simply dragging in the laptop cart for research and exclaiming "Go for it!" is an "out to lunch" teaching technique. Kids these days can certainly "find" "info" on the net, but inexperienced digital citizens can fall into an information trap that many fall into on the web. Google it. Well, ok. That's kinda like going to the library to research spiders and picking the first book in the library that contains the word spiders in it. You walk out grasping a book about covertible cars. Waste of time, huh? (Maybe not, if you end up learning about that cute little Alpha Romeo.) What's worse is if they do find a site about spiders, it could be giving them wrong information, or what's worse than worse is the kinds of sites that they may find on accident that have nothing to do with spiders or cars but people nicknamed Spider that you know little Jilly's mom wouldn't want near her in a grocery store.

Cool Cat Teacher makes this point:

If students take the "first thing they come to" to determine their opinion, then we are sorely at the mercy of Google's algorithms and the determination of webmasters who desire to be heard. Understanding how to search, how to validate sources, and even how to use deep web resources is an essential part of being literate.


I like the deep web resources idea. I immediately think of my first time creeping through the "stacks" in the most massive library on UT's campus, trying to locate a "deep paper resource". Although an overwhelming task for a Freshman, I felt like I was digging deep into a mountain of information to find the most crystal clear primary source on my topic. Deep web resources are a new, more user friendly way. Having a page with tons of links to muliple credible sources has certainly put research in to a tighter space :).


Cool Cat Teacher also points out that, "
The digital revolution has its own problems... largely due to an educational system that is plugging its ears and denying its existence, leaving children to self-educate themselves. (A formula that rarely works.)"

After reading a few of her opinions on the matter, I visited the following link and read the article on how to implement this. I like these ideas which seem to be good practice for all ages.

http://www.educ.ksu.edu/digitalcitizenship/DCReflect.pdf