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eSchool News
6
steps to promote good digital citizenship for all students
By Dr. Audrey Hovannesian
March 29th, 2019
Standing at the intersection of digital citizenship and responsible
device usage, school districts can make a real difference in their
students’ lives
By the time today’s digital natives enter high school, most of them
have already been using devices, computers, the internet, and social
media for years. They use these tools on their own terms and for their
own reasons, many of which aren’t readily apparent to older adults who
didn’t grow up with tablets and mobile phones in hand.
This usage presents unique challenges for educators who must not only
teach a standard curriculum and help shepherd students into adulthood,
but who must also help promote good digital citizenship both in and out
of the classroom.
Whether this means posting on social media only content that they’d be
okay with everyone seeing; not using profanity; using their devices
responsibly and safely at all times; or following the rules and
guidelines when using classroom forums, Instagram, or other sites;
raising good digital citizens is as challenging as it is rewarding.
Here’s how we do it at our district.
A 6-step digital citizenship plan
Step 1: Start with creating and implementing a Responsible Technology
Use agreement.
We’re committed to helping our students use technology safely and
responsibly, so our district implemented a Responsible Technology Use
agreement. For our students, this means completing an annual
digital-citizenship course within 30 days of enrollment in the
district. We use a comprehensive program from CommonSense Media, where
the lessons run 20-25 minutes in length and we administer them within
our classroom labs, regular classrooms, or at home. The content is
grade-specific (for us that’s grades 7-12) and features lessons
designed to empower students to think critically, behave safely, and
participate responsibly in our digital world.
Step 2: Focus on digital etiquette, respect, and safety.
Our digital citizenship courses teach our junior high and high school
students how to respect themselves and others through digital
etiquette, digital access, and digital-law lessons. The courses educate
students and show them how to connect with others through digital
literacy, digital communication, and digital commerce lessons. Finally,
they teach students how to protect themselves and others through
modules like digital rights and responsibilities, digital security, and
digital health and wellness.
Step 3: Prepare students to leave the best #digitalfootprint in the
digital world.
Whether they enter the workforce or college, we want our students to be
well prepared for the world. And that means leaving a digital footprint
that they can be proud of. We take this responsibility very seriously;
we consider this our last chance to teach them before they graduate.
By the time they get into higher education or the workforce, students
need to have had their digital skills embedded. For us, that means
identifying what they need in terms of guidance and support to become
responsible adults in our digital world. Technology’ not going away, so
they’re going to have to learn how to manage their actions in order to
successfully maneuver, behave, and act appropriately.
Step 4: Find a student safety screening tool to support your safety
measures.
We used to rely on student reporting of suspicious or inappropriate
online activity. Before becoming a Google district, we worked with
Amplified IT to complete a Google audit, which ferreted out the number
of profane words residing in our students’ Google Docs.
We were filtering at a high level, but not going far enough to catch
students using profanity or specific catchphrases tied to bullying,
inappropriate behaviors, school violence, and other harmful situations.
To help, we searched for an online platform that would close that gap
while also monitoring student email for inappropriate discussions. We
chose Gaggle for its robust artificial intelligence technology and the
fact that real people are monitoring the student’s online activity. For
us, having that tool in place is really about discipline through
nurturing—and through education. When we catch something, we address it
right away.
Step 5: Look for what isn’t visible – Stranger Danger and more.
We recently intervened when an underage foster child began
communicating with an adult male who was planning to pick her up and
run away. During one email exchange, the adult happened to include
profanity, and our safety-management platform picked up on it and
alerted us to the potential problem. That, in turn, opened up the
entire email conversation and allowed our district administrators and
the child’s foster parents to intervene in what could have turned into
a major incident.
In other instances, we’ve used the e-mailing monitoring platform to
identify students who were using email for online dating and/or escort
services, the latter of which were posting profiles that contained
nudity. Again, Gaggle caught those activities and reported them to the
designated individuals who, in turn, intervened quickly.
Step 6: Know that you can’t put a price on a student’s life or future.
You also can’t put a price on the value of educating a student to be a
good digital citizen. However, the investment we’ve made in both time
and money to achieve our goals in this area have been well worth it.
Safety is a number one priority for the stakeholders in our district.
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