Digital Citizenship, on behaving ethically at all times.
Digital citizenship means being a proactive online learner while behaving ethically at all times.
Assessment 5: Persuasive Blog Post
What is digital citizenship you may ask? Digital citizenship refers to the usage of technology in a respectful and responsible way, this means preventing cyberbullying, knowing how to be safe online, and knowing how to participate in social activities responsibly. To be a proactive online learner you need to know and practice digital interaction and communication with others, management of your Digital identity and respect of others digital identity as well, to be able to solve problems by using technology, and to know how to look after yourself and others when online. Behaving ethically means behaving in a correct manner that is necessary to be able to use technology in the correct way and to be able to interact with others properly. In this blog you are going to find how ethics influence online learners from knowing what is right and wrong in a digital environment, how to be ethical at all times while being an individual online learner and what that means, and how to communicate with others ethical as an online learner.
How ethics influence online learners from knowing what is right and wrong in a digital environment.
In Being ethical goes beyond just following the law, Kerns states that “Ethics are the standard of what is right and wrong, and they are based on our values. Being ethical requires making a moral judgment, and that’s not always easy.” (Kerns, 2011, para 4). Knowing what is right and wrong also means that we know what is real and fake, and what is true or false. One of the many things that people find hard to tell is if it is a real or fake news articles or something from a magazine, this can be because we want to know what is going on and we want to be able to believe. The thing that most people do is they share the article on social media without looking to see if the source of the article is one that they can trust, most people see the headline and thing I will read this and believe this without checking the source. Having ethics as an online learner can stop this from happening because we know that not everything that we read can be real and 100% true. We also know that sharing something that is not ours is wrong and we should not do it and that others should not either
How to be ethical at all times while being an individual online learner and what this means.
Being ethical at all times as an individual online learner can be hard because there are many things that have to be thought about such as; making sure that you are being safe online and that you are not exposing yourself or others around you, it making sure that you know what you are posting, that others can see it and knowing that people will be able to see it in the future, making that you are doing the right thing and not breaking any laws, and making sure that posting something does not lead to any copyright issues, that you know everything is your own. People have to be careful when online because we all know that our private information can be spread very easier and that people that we do not what seeing it end up seeing it, and it can be very hard at times to stop our information from getting spread around. On a website called Media Smarts they have an article called Ethics and Sharing Personal Information where is says “There’s no question that youth are aware of how easily their private information can be spread to unintended audiences, and many spend considerable time online managing who sees what about them.” (Ethics and Sharing Personal Inform, 2020, para 2), this tells us that people do know that their private information can be spread easier and that they are trying to stop it from spreading. We have to make sure that we are not the ones sharing other people’s private information because that would then mean that we are not being ethical as an individual. We all know that at times it can be hard to stay ethical, but it is important that we do.
How to communicate with others ethically as an online learner.
Communicating with others can be hard at times because not everyone has the same option, and this can be hard when online because we can often get frustrated and want to see something back which can then up hurt that other person. Being an ethical online learner, we know that it is wrong too cyberbully, and we do not condone it. When communicating with others we also known that we should us proper language and it should not include an explicit word in it, we also know that if we are communicating over messages that we should right full sentences. Everyone does make mistakes though and we must remember if we do say something bad to someone else that we should apologies.
In Conclusion, Digital citizenship is being a proactive online learner while behaving ethically at all times. Being a digital citizen is known what is right and wrong when on a digital environment and that you know how to behave in the correct way. It also means that as an individual learner that it does not matter if you are interacting with others or not that you still be ethical at all times. Remember to behave ethically when communicating with other because it might affect others around you. Please remember to always be safe when online, that you behave in a correct manner and that you make sure that you are respecting others that are also using technology.
References
Ethics and sharing personal information. (n.d). Media Smarts
Kerns, P. (2011). Being ethical goes beyond just following the law. NCSL.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/ethics/sorting-right-from-wrong.aspx