Digital Citizenship Part 1: Appropriate Use

The growing use of digital tools brings with it concerns with student inappropriate access and use of information and communication technology. WBAIS believes that educating students is the best way to address these concerns so that the same understanding, respect and responsibility that applies to our social, professional, hardcopy world applies to our digital world. To this end the fifth WBAIS Technology Standard, adopted from the International Society of Technology Education (ISTE), is titled Digital Citizenship. This standard notes that students at our school will “understand human, cultural, and social issues related to technology and practices legal and ethical behavior.” In detail, this means that students will:

• advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.

• exhibit a positive attitude towards using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.

demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.

• exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

Below are a few initial strategies addressing growing concerns with our student's appropriate use of technology tools. These were discussed during the February Technology Team and Technology Committee meetings.

• Revise the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to clarify the use of any computing or communicating device which accesses our network. This includes family owned laptops, cell phones and an assortment of handheld devices, all of which fall under the AUP when connected to our campus network.

• Review the AUP with students and publish reminders in the daily bulletin.

• Post helpful appropriate use hints in high usage areas around campus. For example, “LARK” (below)

• Encourage teachers to integrate Technology Curriculum Standard #5, Digital Citizenship into appropriate lessons and activities.

• Publish newsletter articles focusing on the Appropriate Use of Technology and Digital Citizenship

This article is the first in a series of Digital Citizenship articles that we plan to publish through our school newsletter and Tech Talk blog http://wbaistech.blogspot.com/ . We hope to raise the awareness of Digital Citizenship among all our community members and provide them with some strategies that will help educate our students both on and off campus. This is not a technological issue but a cultural issue. Only through consistent efforts at school and home will our students learn to be responsible digital citizens.

To begin this effort we would like to share the following computer use hints with you. Fell free to use these hints with your students and add comments to our Blog.

Be “LARK”: Make sure your computer use is Legal, Appropriate, Responsible and Kind *

• Legal: illegally copied or downloaded software, music, video or games may never be used on any computer at WBAIS including laptops issued to WBAIS students.

• Appropriate: only appropriate words and images are used, viewed or heard. Any material you would not show to your grandmother, parents, principal or a 1st grader is a good sign of inappropriateness. If inappropriate materials are viewed or received, it is the responsibility of the recipient to see that an adult is informed.

• Responsibility: whether intentional or not, care is taken to prevent damage, changing or misuse, with all hardware, systems settings (including shared computer screen savers, network or system files) and software.

• Kind: the rights or feelings of others in the WBAIS Community are in no way treaded upon by your use of technology.

* LARK is taken from 1 to 1 Learning: Laptop Programs that Work by Pamela Livingston.