Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Digital Citizenship inside grade 2


“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds,

so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

- Plato

 
Digital Citizenship is most closely defined at “those who use the Internet regularly and effectively” (K. Mossberger). It is well known that teenagers and young adults have an extreme presence in the online communities but what about elementary scholars especially grade 2? I think that for younger kids the internet is mostly a place of learning not so much for socializing, like most teens and young adults. A second grade classroom today has more technology than ever before. Lessons and activities teacher do are almost all online. Second graders are able to go online and view you tube videos, blog posts, and research pages; all that are previously viewed by the teacher and put on a shared Google document that the whole class can see.
Since 2nd graders are more tuned into lessons online it is important to teach digital citizenship to them. In one online magazine the importance of parents teaching their child digital citizenship is shown. The magazine (away magazine) discusses that it is important for young online users to understand what is going on online. Parents should talk to their kids about buying and selling online and what is appropriate. It also explains the importance of teaching your child first how to use a computer and what responsibilities come with being online. For example parents need to discuss that it can be addicting and that they might stumble onto a website not right for them and what to do if this happens at home such as tell mom or dad and go back to their previous webpage.
In the classroom teachers need to discuss digital citizenship to kids so that they can do research for the class and get involved in the big community. On ask a teacher a whole example lesson plan is shown for how to teach digital citizenship to a second grade classroom, it discusses how to live in the digital world. The main points show teaching what a digital citizen is, what the responsibilities online are, how being an online citizen connects to being a citizen of the town, and what is the importance of being a good citizen. For second grade it is important to teach them what is wrong and why so discussing plagiarism is a highlight as well as cyber bullying, they need to understand that these are dangerous and not respectful to others. This guide to a lesson on citizenship also includes links to websites that have activities and games connected to the essential points. One website you can be connected to is brainpop, the website have all kinds of point of topics you can click on and it takes you to a new page that has the definition and explanation of, for example plagiarism, and on the other side there is a video about plagiarism. Another website (livebinder) connects teachers with a list of website that have games and information all safe for students to go onto and research digital citizenship.
It is important to teach young students the importance of digital citizenship because they need to know the basic rules for being online before they can become part of the educational and social communities. If they do not learn about digital citizenship and the responsibilities and risks that arouse form it then they will miss use it and the internet will become a center for the wrong things. On coalcrackerclassroom they say that as a teacher “you are responsible for the education and learning” as well as the social skills needed for today’s society. Teaching a second grader digital citizenship helps them to learn more about being online and how to protect themselves as well.
Will every positive there is a negative, so while educating digital citizenship there is also a risk that the students will still miss use it. When setting young kids off online there is a risk of what they will find and how they will choose to use it. As a second grader they are starting to understand right and wrong and might push the boundaries when a teacher puts them online. Also a young student must have a supportive family at home, if the student goes to school and learns one thing about being online then goes home to a house with unsupervised computer access they might use what they learned to go beyond what they should be doing online and find trouble. Although there are some risks to setting a second grader into the online world, I think there is a lot of educational and good website out there for them to learn from and use throughout their lives.



   




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2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your blog post. You hit all the major points and went above and beyond. I didn't even think to talk about cyber-bullying for elementary school, that was a good point.

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  2. Your blog post touched on many things I did not think would affect elementary school students. I really enjoyed how informative and detailed your Prezi was.

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