Digital Citizenship: A Reflection

Being a digital citizenship has some commonalities as to being a citizenship in a community. With certain criterions, digital citizenship seems to have more responsibilities for it expands itself to a global level. Unlike the normal citizenship responsibilities of being kind, responsible and respectful (Marshall, 1950), digital citizenship is ensuring the equal rights of all in the digital world including accessibility to technology. Not only is okay to know about Digital citizenship, but there seems to be responsibility teaching digital citizenship in a manner that reflect not just what to do but how to be. Learning more about digital citizen this week has created more awareness of the responsibilities of digital users.

First understanding that digital citizenship isn’t just about acceptable use policies (AUP) that are created to tell students about what not to do, but it is the idea that “ good digital citizens work to help create a society of users who help each other learn how to use technology appropriately” (Ribble, M., 2015). This is an understanding that not only isn’t about how to treat other but also how to educate oneself about technology and the appropriate use of it. One of the nine elements that seems to be unknown is Element 2: Digital Commerce is an element that is not an element that comes to mind when think about digital citizenship. The buying and selling electronically is a popular use for all but to be wary of it for students at one point to be important. But as Ribble (2015) states that “online purchasing has become an important factor in students’ lives. This factor includes teaching students to buy from acceptable and verifiable sites as well as distinguish between scams and identity theft.

Digital Commerce is not only a student problem, but also an adult problem as well. Too many times it is seen on the news that individuals have been scammed or have stolen identities from online shopping (Ribble, 2015). With this being a major problem among adults, it seems essential to teach students as well. Although this is something that almost seems to be not a good fitting for students to learn in the classroom, it is an important element to have students understand the different characteristics between verifiable sites and phishing sites. In order to teach students this important factor, an educator needs to develop a lesson where students learn the problems of online shopping and develop solutions that will help others to spot the warning signs. This will lead students to understand the appropriate examples of digital commerce.

Digital citizenship encompasses many elements that teaches individuals on how to use technology in the appropriate manner. Although Digital commerce isn’t the main factor for student learning, it is an important factor that should be considered in teaching students the different elements of digital citizenship. The misguided notion that digital citizenship is just about how to use the internet appropriately, but it needs to be a priority to reeducate most individuals. Students can benefit for the proper understanding but as well as those who teach it.

References

Marshall, T.H. (1950). Citizenship and social class: and other essays. Cambridge, MA:

University Press.

Ribble, M (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know.

Eugene, Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.