Digital Citizenship - Cultivating Appropriate Communication
Kathleen Morris, in her blog, "How to Teach Digital Citizenship Through Blogging" creates an interesting argument surrounding the benefits of using blogging with students in order to teach them important digital citizenship skills. Morris states that digital citizenship spans way beyond the concerns over "cyber safety" and "cyber bullying" and seeps into the world of rights and responsibilities when using online technology tools.
There are many points made by Morris that I agree with, however, before I get into those a little deeper, I feel it is important to consider my concern, in that, after reading her blog I felt that Cyber safety and cyber bullying were discussed as being of less importance. I may be new to the world of blogging, but I am not ready to consider that either of these occurrences should be down played. Predators and bullies have a much bigger world to "play" in with the advancement of technology and social media.
Morris encourages her readers to consider blogging as a tool to teach students how to behave appropriately while participating in the digital world. While cyber bullying occurs, she argues there is so much more to digital citizenship, breaking this topic into eight categories helps the reader understand her mindset.
Netiquette: Morris discusses the standards that you set for everyday offline activities applies to online interactions. As teachers use blogging, encourage students to create a positive forum of discussion.
Digital Footprints: This is something that concerns me a great deal as an educator. Publishing on a public blog means putting yourself out there for the world to see. Morris suggests that educators can use blogging as a tool to guide this process in a "less risky" platform. Having no digital footprint is not an options for our future workforce. Colleges and employers use the online world as a tool for choosing who they believe to be appropriate candidates.
Curation and Creativity: Using blogging in education can encourage students to use critical thinking and creativity. The more creative we allow our students to be, the more they will be "in high demand" and will become critical consumers. Morris argues that this in turn will drive the demand and productivity for high quality products.
Communication: Morris suggests that blogging "offers an amazing way for students to learn and practice various forms of communication". There are many tools available for students to choose from to communicate. Blogging can teach students to communicate clearly and responsibly.
Copyright: "Through blogging students can learn how to become fluent at sourcing, using, and attributing images".
Health and Wellness: Morris makes a legitimate argument that the need to be constantly connected to the online world creates problems when encouraging our youth to be be physically and mentally active. The argument that blogging can be used to teach our students to multitask and therefore challenge our students to be more mentally involved is an interesting one. Morris encourages educators to use blogging to create classroom discussion around taking breaks from the digital world. I'm not sure I'm sold on this idea.
Passwords: I enjoyed reading Morris's suggestion for using blogging to teach our students about how to create passwords, keep them safe, and ensure they are strong.
Digital Access: This is another interesting idea put forth by Morris. Teachers can use blogging to teach our students with limited access to the digital world about what is available. Raising awareness of the digital world and creating ways for increasing access to those who are restricted can be powerful.
I find Morris's arguments about using blogging to teach digital citizenship interesting and definitely something to consider. The digital world of online communication is not going away. As educators, we need to teach our students how to contribute to this world as positive citizens.
References
How to Teach Digital Citizenship Through Blogging
There are many points made by Morris that I agree with, however, before I get into those a little deeper, I feel it is important to consider my concern, in that, after reading her blog I felt that Cyber safety and cyber bullying were discussed as being of less importance. I may be new to the world of blogging, but I am not ready to consider that either of these occurrences should be down played. Predators and bullies have a much bigger world to "play" in with the advancement of technology and social media.
Morris encourages her readers to consider blogging as a tool to teach students how to behave appropriately while participating in the digital world. While cyber bullying occurs, she argues there is so much more to digital citizenship, breaking this topic into eight categories helps the reader understand her mindset.
Netiquette: Morris discusses the standards that you set for everyday offline activities applies to online interactions. As teachers use blogging, encourage students to create a positive forum of discussion.
Digital Footprints: This is something that concerns me a great deal as an educator. Publishing on a public blog means putting yourself out there for the world to see. Morris suggests that educators can use blogging as a tool to guide this process in a "less risky" platform. Having no digital footprint is not an options for our future workforce. Colleges and employers use the online world as a tool for choosing who they believe to be appropriate candidates.
Curation and Creativity: Using blogging in education can encourage students to use critical thinking and creativity. The more creative we allow our students to be, the more they will be "in high demand" and will become critical consumers. Morris argues that this in turn will drive the demand and productivity for high quality products.
Communication: Morris suggests that blogging "offers an amazing way for students to learn and practice various forms of communication". There are many tools available for students to choose from to communicate. Blogging can teach students to communicate clearly and responsibly.
Copyright: "Through blogging students can learn how to become fluent at sourcing, using, and attributing images".
Health and Wellness: Morris makes a legitimate argument that the need to be constantly connected to the online world creates problems when encouraging our youth to be be physically and mentally active. The argument that blogging can be used to teach our students to multitask and therefore challenge our students to be more mentally involved is an interesting one. Morris encourages educators to use blogging to create classroom discussion around taking breaks from the digital world. I'm not sure I'm sold on this idea.
Passwords: I enjoyed reading Morris's suggestion for using blogging to teach our students about how to create passwords, keep them safe, and ensure they are strong.
Digital Access: This is another interesting idea put forth by Morris. Teachers can use blogging to teach our students with limited access to the digital world about what is available. Raising awareness of the digital world and creating ways for increasing access to those who are restricted can be powerful.
I find Morris's arguments about using blogging to teach digital citizenship interesting and definitely something to consider. The digital world of online communication is not going away. As educators, we need to teach our students how to contribute to this world as positive citizens.
References
Morris, K. (2018, February). How to Teach Digital
Citizenship Through Blogging. Retrieved from theedublogger:
https://theedublogger.com/digital-citizenship-blogging
How to Teach Digital Citizenship Through Blogging
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