Since our students will be using technology regularly throughout their school careers and beyond, it is so important that we teach them how to be responsible members of the digital world. During our first meeting, we touched on a number of digital citizenship focuses. In our class, we discuss the importance on being safe online. We talk about the fact that the things we post can be very permanent and that our personal information should be kept private. I encourage parents to be aware of what their children are doing online and to keep track of websites the are registered on and how they are using their email accounts. Our students are registered with Google Apps for Education which requires that each student have an email account. Although I instruct students to use this account only for school based activities, they realistically can use this email account to sign up for anything they like. This is a bit terrifying as kids are so digitally smart when it comes to these types of things. I provide parents/guardians with email accounts and passwords.

We also talk about keeping all posts age appropriate and never using other’s photos, content or informations without permission.

Since we use technology regularly for research, kids need to know how to recognize the credibility of sources. We discuss who is providing the information and for what purpose when trying to decide is a source is “good”. This article has some great information:

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/responsible-student-technology-use.shtml

One of our responsibilities as educators in the tech age is to keep our students digitally aware and safe. Districts take steps to protect identities and we do our best to work with our kids to use their critical thinking skills when using technology.