We need to make sure we are teaching our students to apply life lessons such as “Being Kind”, “Stopping Bullying”, and “Stranger Danger” to their online avatars (personification) as well as their IRL (Real Life) personas. This crossover of expectations is called Digital Citizenship.
Digital Citizenship is all about ensuring children have the knowledge and skills to be safe and make good choices online. We want to make sure students are kind and respectful to their peers, We also want to ensure they are aware of the threats online and conscious of their privacy.
Digital Citizenship includes topics such as:
*Finding a balance between online and offline time
*Evaluating resources
*Protecting your identity and personal information
*Creating effective passwords
*Being weary of your Digital Footprint and how it can affect your future
*Cyberbullying and Digital Drama
*Correctly using and citing sources
*Building positive relationships online
*Data Collection
Common Sense Education offers FREE award winning and highly recommended digital citizenship lessons. Their lessons are designed to be specific to different grade levels.
