Norms and Responsibilities

I believe people should have the right to use the internet and the digital tools on the internet as long as they are responsible users. All children including teenagers need to have someone monitoring their usage of the internet. Of course it would be best if everyone was a responsible user which would include knowledge of the dangers of social media and nothing you put on the internet is guaranteed to be completely private including words, pictures, bank account and credit card numbers. Students should learn the problems which go along with identity theft and how to prevent identity theft. Students need to know of the possible dangers and consequences of sharing too much on the internet. The right to the freedom of speech needs to be understood and other peoples varying points of view need to be respected. But students should also know good moral values are also important to have and use on the internet. Cyber bulling needs to be throughly addressed with students along with copyright laws.

I appreciate you addressing the issue of students having good moral values. This of course stems from foundations apart from the Internet, beginning at home. I recall students who expressed such inappropriate social behavior at school, in a time years before the Internet was conceived. Such behavior had nothing to do with technology, for it flourished in gangs, peer groups, and even through family members. I sometimes wondered how a student could misbehave so much at school, but when I met the parents, I realized the students reflected their rather immoral home behavior. And so now with the Internet, it can be challenging to understand if a student who fails in justly approaching rights and responsibilities of their digital citizenship is acting this way because their new toys of technology are bringing to light a rather unusual deviant self, or if the student is merely using the Internet to misbehave and therefore if not on the Internet, then on the schoolyard. So thanks for mentioning the concept of moral issues and the Internet.