Digital Citizenship and the ISTE Standards for Teachers

In the environment I work in, students usually are not as ethical and concerned about respecting other's property, either physical or intellectual as other students in a more traditional school. Therefore, it is an essential goal to teach ethics and respect across the board in all things. As a teacher it is my responsibility to first model the behavior I want to elicit from my students. 

One of the first things I must do, and I have been lax about, is to make reference to materials I borrow from the internet and to require my students to add bibliographies at the end of their Google presentations. The ISTE standard 4a  for teaching technology suggests that there is a need to "advocate, model, and teach safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology." To utilize this in my classroom, I need to teach my students how to compile citations as they search for information and then organize the citations in bibliography form. This process will not be a one-shot deal because my population of students changes almost daily, so therefore it needs to be addressed every time I have students research for information on the computer.  

Citing sources will need to be a key step written out on the worksheets I create for the assignment. Extra time will need to be allotted to allow students to be more thorough in their research efforts. Since the diversity of my students includes grade levels, learning styles, and technological experience, every lesson has to be built on review of the basic expectations which includes safe, legal, and ethical use of the information gathered off the internet.

Students in the Hall are not allowed to interact with others through social mediums. They are allowed to forward their work to me, but they are not allowed to send messages between themselves or to others unless they are teachers. Understanding this, I will not be spending too much time on promoting digital etiquette and responsible social interactions specifically. I will in a general sense when discussing the responsibility of using computers in the Hall.

Finally, I spend a lot of energy in developing and modeling cultural understanding and global awareness with my students.  Stereotyping and prejudice influence most of my students attitudes towards people of different cultures and race. Asking the hard questions and expecting students to respect differences is precedent in my classroom. The expectations naturally flow into their digital presentations.

Since I have a relatively large digital project coming up on World War I, I will have the perfect opportunity to teach and incorporate elements of digital  citizenship and responsibility.