(Wood, 2021a)

At the beginning of this semester, I was struggling with how to facilitate engaging and meaningful instruction about Digital Citizenship for my students. I was well and truly stuck somewhere in the ‘Internet Safety’ rhetoric (Culatta, 2018), accessing out-dated and negatively focussed lesson plans and curriculums to teach my students about their role as Digital Citizens.

As I begun reading, watching and listening I was heartened by the many people who were committed to changing the rhetoric, who were creating frameworks, curriculums and lessons that empower students to be effective and positive Digital Citizens.

Institutions like ISTE (“We are ISTE”, 2021), individuals like Dr. Mike Ribble and global campaigns like #DigCitCommit (“DigCit Commit”, 2021) are all working towards giving students the skills to navigate, interact, collaborate and contribute to their Digital Communities (“Digital Citizenship in Education”, 2021).

I have been encouraged by the New South Wales Department of Education’s Digital Citizenship Toolkit (“Digital Citizenship, 2021) that gives both Educators and Parents a one stop shop of resources and ideas for teaching students about Digital Citizenship. This coupled with the Australian Digital Technologies curriculum (ACARA, 2014) have begun to create a sound foundation on which Educators can build engaging and informative learning opportunities.

I have been empowered by the work of Mattson (2017) in her book Digital Citizenship in Action. Her well researched practical guide has allowed me to begin envisioning how I can implement Positive Digital Citizenship lessons within my Stage 3 classroom.

I am hopeful that the current reviews of the Australian and New South Wales curriculums being undertaken by ACARA (ACARA, 2020) and NESA (“NSW Curriculum Reform”, 2021) respectively will further embed Digital Citizenship within the curriculum, giving Educators the framework to teach and students the opportunity and learn how to be collaborative, positive and effective Digital Citizens.

Where to next?

On a classroom level the aim is to create engaging lessons embedded into curriculum content that allow my students, under the mentorship of teachers to learn how to be positive Digital Citizens.

On the school level the aim is to share the knowledge gathered through this process of research and learning with colleagues and Executive Staff members.

Lastly on the personal level the aim is to continue to engage with the community committed to championing positive Digital Citizenship in schools and to develop, use and improve teaching techniques that empower my students.

References

ACARA. (2014). Digital Technologies curriculum. Australiancurriculum.edu.au. Retrieved 15 April 2021, from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologies/

ACARA. (2020). Curriculum review. Acara.edu.au. Retrieved 13 April 2021, from https://acara.edu.au/curriculum/curriculum-review.

Culatta, R. (2018). Rethinking Digital Citizenship [Video]. Retrieved 13 April 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwKTYHBG5kk.

DigCit Commit. (2021). Commit to Digital Citizenship! [Video]. Retrieved 11 April 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15zvAiGeW_E.

Digital Citizenship. Digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au. (2021). Retrieved 15 April 2021, from https://www.digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au/.

Digital Citizenship in Education | ISTE. Iste.org. (2021). Retrieved 13 April 2021, from https://www.iste.org/areas-of-focus/digital-citizenship.

Mattson, K. (2017). Digital citizenship in action (1st ed.). International Society for Technology in Education.

NSW Curriculum Reform. nswcurriculumreform.nesa.nsw.edu.au. (2021). Retrieved 13 April 2021, from https://nswcurriculumreform.nesa.nsw.edu.au/home/homePageContent/view

Wood, A. (2021a). Digital Citizenship in Schools [Image]. Retrieved 15 April 2021, from https://www.canva.com/design/DAEcG6SAj50/nQhNHHMKCkhl-qsaaPGH2w/view?utm_content=DAEcG6SAj50&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source