Thing #11

Digital Citizenship is a form of etiquette, but it is so much more. There are many aspects to digital citizenship that should be addressed with students. Obviously we need to talk to them about safety in social networks and virtual worlds. We have all seen the headlines where Facebook or MySpace has created problems, sometime lethal problems for teens. This is something that should be stressed with students especially if we are going to encourage them to use things like Facebook or Second Life! Secondly, as a science teacher I see students year in & year out that do not know how to use the index of a book much less conduct research. CoolCatTeacher wrote about this. I have to talk to them about researching and how to do it properly EVERY year. I also spend some time talking about reliable vs. unreliable resources. The kids have a hard time understanding that not every thing they read on the internet is true or that the information on Wikipedia, for example, can be changed at anytime...I could change it right now, I tell them. We need to talk to them and instill a sort of untrustiness that encourages them to check more than one source before accepting something. This is something that I hope other teachers will work on with their students also so that they get this information streamed throughout their education.