Digital Citizenship

I think that the short 2-minute video did a pretty good job showing what digital citizenship is and being effective in a short amount of time. I think that the 9 elements all coincide with NETS standards for teachers and their vision of digital citizenship as well. I think that the video lacked giving a clear indication of what each element consisted of. I think a younger audience (middle and high school students) would benefit from hearing examples of each element since digital citizenship is a part of the NETS standards for students as well.

According to the NETS for students, Digital Citizenship is all about practicing safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology, having a positive attitude towards technology, demonstrating personal responsibility for lifelong learning, and exhibiting leadership for digital citizenship. For teachers it is all about promoting these ideas and being an example to the students. The video Digital Citizenship: Who will you be? was also simple yet affective in getting the point across. Asking questions such as:

Safe or sorry?

Real or fake?

Share a little or a lot?

Create/credit or steal?

Bully or protect?

I think that if I was teaching a younger age group (about 5^th to 6^th grade) this would be the type of video I would show to get them discussing digital citizenship as an ice breaker into the lesson. I think that it would be an interesting to show them a video like this and not tell them what it was about and see what they felt it related too.

Finally, the last article titled Social Media and Digital Citizenship reiterates the fact that we need to start introducing the elements of digital citizenship at a younger age. Even if technology isn’t as advanced in the classroom, it’s still out there and social media sites are more popular than ever. Statistics such as 20% of teens ages 12-17 feel that people are mostly unkind on social media websites should be a red flag indicating we need to start addressing these issues at younger ages instead of after students have already come into the midst of sites that can be potentially harmful.

Privacy and Security

I think that the internet is something that a lot of us take for granted. We never really question the information we are putting out there and think of it as something that is pretty safe in terms of privacy and security. Eli Pariser’s lecture on filter bubbles was something that I had heard about here and there but never really paid attention to it. I agree with him that it is our responsibility to change this. It should be our choice to determine what is or isn’t filtered out of our searches and that it is also important for us to be shown not just what is comfortable but also things that challenge us, are important, and shown other points of views as well. It is not fair that the internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, when in reality it really has no idea.

Hasan Elahi has a unique take on the internet and a refreshing sense of humor when it comes to being cautious about what you post on the internet since all we ever seem to see on the news and read in newspapers is about how dangerous it is to post too much information. At first I was a little skeptical about his solution, but after more of an explanation it all made sense. Instead of getting angry about being questioned so often by the FBI, he took it with a grain of salt and a sense of humor. Most people would be apprehensive to post this much information about their transactions and whereabouts, but he saw it as safe because he had control over it. He saw it as creating his own archives and still felt he had enough privacy and was still a very anonymous person. Some lessons that we can draw from Elahi’s experience is that the amount of privacy and security that one feels safe with is different for every person. As long as you feel you have control over the situation and the information out there, you are safe.

The news clip about facebook leading to robbery is something we often see in order to scare us into being more private and careful online. In terms of facebook, twitter, and other social media sites that are similar to these, I feel it is just a matter of being smart and limiting others’ access to your page. The privacy settings are there, they just need to be used correctly.

Overall the internet is something that should be available for everyone to use and for them to be able to use freely and openly as they please. Information and accessibility to this information should be the same for everyone and I feel that it is important for us as individuals to have a say in what information gets weeded out in terms of browsing. In a professional sense and as an educator it is important to represent your establishment in a positive way and be professional in all settings including your social media sites if people other than close friends and family can access them.