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I have been in education for almost 30 years and whether we are talking about learning a math equation, a new play in basketball, or digital citizenship; we can say the words to students but for them to understand it, they have to see it and sometimes sadly experience it. Like another person said here, much of what is said about digital citizenship is the same as dealing with people in real life and was taught years ago in Kindergarten. I think the real difference now, which our current students can't see right away, is that if I call you a name on the playground today and I see you start crying, this is real to me and I see the effect of what I said. Even though teachers and parents have talked to their students about responsibility on the internet, I see that many students don't really understand or see the effect of what they say online - so in a way it isn't real. Sadly many have to have a first hand experience to understand this.
Students have a responsibility to act as good citizens when they are on the internet; whether on twitter or facebook commenting on other students or people. They need to act appropriately. The problem here is that many don't act appropriately and they really don't have any consequences. The problem is that in most cases, no one gets into trouble for acting inappropriately on the internet until some kills themselves over some comments others make. Back to me calling you a name on the playground, I saw how that made you cry and it made me feel bad that I did that; I see the effects of my actions. Online I don't see you cry, I don't feel bad, and just keep going; so it doesn't seem real. On the playground you may go tell the playground teacher what I did and will get into trouble for it. There is no internet supervisor, and kids don't normally go tell what was said about them online to adults. It doesn't seem real online, until it effects them negatively.
Rights are an interesting challenge for me in regards to online activities and the internet. What rights do adults and children have???? Example: My daughter was sick for a couple of days and being a good student wanted to go back to class. She was sitting in class not looking her best with sinus infections and another student took a picture of her with his cell phone and posted it online with the caption "this is what she looks like after a hard night out - if you know what I mean". What he meant was sexual in nature and was a real derogatory statement about our daughter. Can you imagine how many complaints the school would have to deal with each day if they tried to take on policing the internet? The police wouldn't do anything about it because he didn't specifically say anything. So just what are my daughter's rights??? This wasn't something said in the hall once and then dropped - it is on the internet now for life. Did you hear about the Curt Schilling pro baseball pitcher story? Really nasty things were said about his daughter on twitter when he posted how he was proud of her signing to pitch at a college following her senior year. Curt Schilling has money and resources and he tracked down each individual that said those things and either got them fired from their jobs, embarrassed them and their families in the press, and for those threatening comments, had those people charged with a crime. This is great and I am glad for him; but not everyone can do this. What rights do we have when something bad is done to our students online. Some companies you can try to contact and report it and it will be taken down. I have found that this is a struggle in most cases.
Off that subject. There is an immense amount of resource at our fingertips that were never available before and this is wonderful. If I need to help my kids with a hard math problem, I can go online and watch a video on how to solve the problem with them. This is incredible to have this resource. On the reverse side, we still need to caution our students about the reliability of resources on the internet and what is true and not.
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