What is needed to be a Digital Citizen?
December 8, 2007Ah! Its Saturday night, I’m sitting back, with an Iced Tea, watching Silverchair and Powderfinger on the Telly. I pick up my Laptop and open Vienna to catch up with my blog-roll. After reading Will Richardson’s blog “the kids are alright” I was lead to read Alec Couros’ “Understanding Digital Citizenship.” Hmm. Alec really starts the thought processes going, and Will has some very good additions too.
Below are the ongoing thoughts that I’ve had after mulling on this for a little while. It starts off as the comment I made to Alec’s article, then continues on from there.
This is a very important subject, and one that we as educators need to look good and hard at. I will be posting some thoughts to this on my blog, once I have digested what you’ve said and the thoughts that spawn from this (herewith). There’s so much that can be said, but in the end, we want our students to learn the appropriate way to use the Internet. The way that keeps them safe, aware, informed. The Internet is a great tool, Web 2.0 allows interaction like never before, and hey, not all of it is bad! How do we as Educators use this when the current trend is to stick a filter in front of it so that it can’t be seen, and therefore doesn’t exist in what we teach? I know some teachers that are banging their heads against brick walls trying to get to use some of these fantastic new tools. It’s my dream that we can work out a compromise on this. I’d like to know the answer to this problem. But alas, will there ever be a definitive one?
As the Internet, and the new technologies grow, I bet these sorts of problems will too. But in saying that, ignoring them doesn’t help either. We have a wish list of things that we would like to be able to do with our students in 2008, and how we are going to do some of them seem like a “far away” thing. What reaction would you get when you ask for a class set of Mobile Phones so you can teach the students to twitter? In reality most of the students (if not all) will have them already, but they are not meant to have them at school so we cant encourage that!
What are your thoughts on this? Do we draw a line, put in a filter, or do we open up the world?
I don’t believe in filtering. Educators need to empower their students to filter their own content, but they need to start with themselves through coming to better understand what is out there, and what critical media literacy means.
Thanks for joining in on the conversation. all the best!
And this is the issue that we cannot seem to get around. We have some fantastic ideas being thrown around by LG, but when we raise the option of “opening up” the access to the Internet we keep being reminded of our “Duty of Care.” Doesn’t our duty of care extend to teaching the appropriate use of the Internet and its new and emerging technologies? What our students can’t get to at school, they dive in to unprepared at home. Most parents don’t know what their Sons and Daughters are doing on the web at night, therefore there is no sharing of the good, the bad, and of course the ugly side of what is out there. It’s very frustrating to say the least. Nevertheless we will not back down and will keep trying to push for a better way to do these things. We need to keep speaking up about this issue and hopefully, one day we will actually be listened to.
Cheers,
Andrew (TFT)