In many ways digital citizenship is very similar to traditional ideals of good citiizenship that have existed throughout history. Here are some examples:
We should always check your sources for reliability whether they are digital or not.
We should always be careful about what we write, whether on the internet or in a traditional medium. Once it's written down it's permanent and can follow you the rest of your life!
We should always be concerned with ethics and issues such as plagiarism. It doesn't matter whether it's in a digital forum or not, plagiarism is inherently unethical and wrong.
It seems to me that the main differences between the digital citizenship world and the traditional view of citizenship are the speed and ease with which information is available and in which it can be spread all over the world.
We have research and communication tools available at our fingertips. It is SOO easy to find an answer to a question, assume it's correct and send the answer to everyone you know without ever checking to see if it's valid.
So many websites seem legitimate. It's hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones, especially for students who are under pressure to get research papers completed. It's also so easy for students to find information and copy it into their own work without giving credit to the person who authored the information.
I liked this comparison of traditional citizenship and digital citizenship that I found on Pinterest, so thought I would post it here:
We should always check your sources for reliability whether they are digital or not.
We should always be careful about what we write, whether on the internet or in a traditional medium. Once it's written down it's permanent and can follow you the rest of your life!
We should always be concerned with ethics and issues such as plagiarism. It doesn't matter whether it's in a digital forum or not, plagiarism is inherently unethical and wrong.
It seems to me that the main differences between the digital citizenship world and the traditional view of citizenship are the speed and ease with which information is available and in which it can be spread all over the world.
We have research and communication tools available at our fingertips. It is SOO easy to find an answer to a question, assume it's correct and send the answer to everyone you know without ever checking to see if it's valid.
So many websites seem legitimate. It's hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones, especially for students who are under pressure to get research papers completed. It's also so easy for students to find information and copy it into their own work without giving credit to the person who authored the information.
I liked this comparison of traditional citizenship and digital citizenship that I found on Pinterest, so thought I would post it here:
I believe that teachers have a responsibility to foster good citizenship in both the traditional sense and in the digital world. They can do this by making sure students check their sources and that they give credit to authors.
Teacher can also create many interesting projects to demonstrate to students how poor digital citizenship can get out of control quickly and have drastic adverse and long lasting affects. It is important to teach these things while students are young so that they grow up to be responsible adults. Learning hard lessons now will pay off for them as they move into the adult world.
I thought the following article from The Atlantic (I've attached the link to it below) comparing the plagiarism of a 6th grader to that of a U.S. Senator was very interesting. It is written by Jessica Lahey and appeared on July 24, 2014.
You're right, Beth. Having such ready access to resources makes it easy to assume that all resources are credible and relevant. We need to teach students to slow down and evaluate what they find online.
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