Digital Citizenship Toolbox

For the next two weeks I will be going into the elementary classrooms and discussing "digital citizenship" with our students. In some classes we will watch video clips regarding leaving a digital footprint, in the older grades we will actually go over the school's adopted Technology Community Covenant (https://docs.google.com/a/ccsk12.com/document/d/1DijPZBqqt13o2WuEfyKd3gw3adrUeT1qXf-cFG5kp-I/edit) and have them take it home to their parents to discuss and sign as a family. The depth and scope of my discussions about digital citizenship varies due to age of the students but doing this in the first 2 weeks of school is something that I feel very passionate about in my teaching.

In every grade level I will be sharing my class Bible verse of the year to serve as a guide for them when they are on the Internet, (Philippians 4:8 - Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.)  Lastly, each grade level will be shown my DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP TOOLBOX adapted from this blog post on Comfortably 2.0. Below is my version that I will be sharing with the students:

Digital Citizenship Toolbox

Credit Card

Give and get credit. We’re all proud of what we create. Illegal downloading, digital cheating, and cutting and pasting other people’s stuff may be easy, but that doesn’t make it right. You have the responsibility to respect other people’s creative work -- and the right to have your own work respected.

Padlock

"Lock 'em down.” The padlock is to remind students to set strong passwords and to set up passcode locks on all of their digital devices.   

Toothbrush

I tell students to think that passwords and toothbrushes are very similar in the fact that you NEVER want to share passwords.  (I do highly encourage/recommend that students to share passwords with parents)

Permanent Marker

Everything that you put online is permanent....even if you hit the delete button after posting.  Odds are someone has retweeted, favorited,  or taken a screenshot of the material if it was questionable.  

Toothpaste

Imagine the information that you are putting online is like the toothpaste coming out of the tube.  Once it is out, it is almost impossible to get it all back in the tube!  

Yarn

Tangled web we weave. If you want your privacy respected, respect others' privacy. Posting an embarrassing photo or forwarding a friend’s private text without asking can cause unintended hurt or damage to others.

Spreader

Spread heart, not hurt. If you wouldn’t say it in person, don’t say it online. Stand up for those who are bullied or harassed, and let them know that you’re there for them.

Make this a world you want to live in. Spread the good stuff. Create, share, tag, comment, and contribute to the online world in positive ways.