What is digital citizenship?

Digital citizenship involves a vast range of responsibilities, technology, skills, behaviours and knowledge. Teachers will first need to understand it and develop it themselves before being able to construct policies and programs to promote it in the school community. It also has a shifting base as new forms of web 2.0 tools and social networking pervade all aspects of daily life.

To achieve ‘digital citizenship’ students are required to develop the ability to learn as a 21^st century learner with all that entails – the 4 ‘c’s as I call them: collaboration, connectivity, critical thinking and creativity – in a supportive and  safe, yet challenging educational setting.

As a TL, as Farmer (2010) suggested, it is the TL who sees all students and comes into contact with all staff so how much of the responsibility rests with them? How do we achieve school wide digital citizenship?

Digital Citizenship - Here I Come

Horizon Report

The implications for 2013 is that we have to begin to make the shift towards mobile device education. This means a huge shift in budget administration and pedagogy. A school needs qualified and passionate leaders to lead this change successfully. It’s a bit like stepping off a cliff into space because technology is changing so quickly we don’t know where it will take us or what’s coming next.

What the students need to learn has now changed. Facts are not what is important anymore. What’s important is that students know where to locate and efficiently select the information they need. In Denmark (I think) students are sent home with tests that they can complete using the resources of the internet. This type of shift has huge implications for our teaching content and our current methods of assessment, not to mention national testing programs.

The teacher librarian’s responsibility to teach information skills is now more important than ever when we look at the intricacies of defining a topic and the issue of website evaluation skills. These abilities cut across all curriculum areas.

Diigo

I have joined Diigo and applied for an educator account. Looking forward to using it to bookmark information for this course as I continue with my readings.