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NECC: Digital Citizenship and ECGC?
Posted On Saturday, July 5, 2008 at at 3:11 PM by S. Bolos
This is the last post I plan to write about the sessions from the National Educational Computing Conference, or NECC. The last speaker I saw, Mike Ribble, of Kansas State University, is the author of Digital Citizenship in Schools, which is a forward-thinking work dealing with the ethics and the legality of student behavior on the internet, "emphasizing the positive aspects of technology usage: collaboration, learning and productivity".
Ribble argues that too often we as educators (and parents) provide our students with the latest technological tools without really explaining how to use them properly. We have already witnessed the many abuses under the current laissez-faire system: cyberbullying, illegal downloading, creating websites to complain about teachers, and using cell phones during class. As a response, most schools' Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) tell students what they can't do, but "do not teach students what is appropriate and why" (9). Under this umbrella of digital citizenship, Ribble identifies nine themes (all defined at his website):
- Digital Etiquette
- Digital Communication
- Digital Literacy
- Digital Access
- Digital Commerce
- Digital Law>Image via Wikipedia
- Digital Rights and Responsibilities
- Digital Health and Wellness
- Digital Security (self-protection)
As I sat in this session, I immediately thought of New Trier's Strategic Planning initiatives, specifically our Ethical Conduct and Global Citizenship (ECGC) action plans. After the success of the ECGC discussions in Advisery last year, and considering how involved our students are in social networks like Facebook and with technology in general, "digital citizenship" might be the next step in implementing our action plans.
Related reading: Mark Wagner's "Ethical Use of the Read/Write Web".
Stay tuned to www.fan-ntts.org for news about dana boyd at WJHS this fall (2009)