Digital Citizenship

1. Why is it important to teach digital citizenship? I feel like teaching digital citizenship in your classroom is so important. We need them to have that base of security as they use computers and go online. I also feel like this is not just something teachers should teach their students, but rather we teach in addition to the students parents, so they are hearing it again, to show them how important it really is. So I do feel as a parent myself that I need to talk to my children about what is appropriate to post online, and how to use computers. Now days there is so much garbage that is so easily accessible to these young children. They should be taught, that anything you post on the internet, stays there. Even if you delete it a few days later, or even minutes later, it was on there and someone still has access to it. This will affect them for the rest of their life. I also like that we teach them to protect their own privacy. How scary is it that someone can go online posing as someone their age, and they lure them in to get that personal information, and as a parent that scares me. We need to teach them to be safe, because these things are out there and they need to be prepared as to how to handle the situation if they ever find themselves in it.
2. How might you teach digital citizenship in an elementary classroom? I feel like just having an open conversation about it. Talk about the importance of respect, show them a cyber bully documentary (there are so many of them) and have the students reflect and put themselves in that situation. How would they feel? Also talk about how what you post is accessible to anyone and everyone, they should never post anything about where they live, and other private information. I think it would be so cool to have a police officer come in and talk about the safety too. A police officer? You may ask. Yes, because they could share a story about people pretending to be someone they are not, and someone of a different age. He could teach them to only accept people's requests if they know them personally, and even then, NEVER give out personal information.

(picture found at https://www.tes.com/lessons/-85xjUXaX7sjHg/digital-citizenship)