Assessment 2- ITC174 29/04/2020
Brooklyn Walsh
What digital citizenship means and how it assists in your digital life today!
Digital Citizenship is an umbrella term that covers a whole range of important issues. Broadly, it practices and provides for responsible and appropriate behaviour when using technology. It means being a proactive online learner while behaving ethically at all times. For example, being truthful with who we are on social media platforms. Some examples of being a digital citizen include things like, learning and knowing how to use a computer properly, or as little as a computer mouse, being polite on social medias. Examples of what is not acting as a digital citizen is harassment, which means showing an aggressive behaviour towards someone, or leaving hateful comments to people online, these kinds of behaviours should be avoided. It is about confident and positive engagement with digital technologies, allowing people to follow the following seven concepts below: (https://www.digitaltechnologieshub.edu.au/teachers/topics/digital-citizenship)
- Digital and information literacy
- Internet safety
- Privacy and security
- Cyberbullying, relationships, etiquette and communication
- Creative edit and copyright
- Digital footprint
- Ethics
Ethics is one important concept to follow what it means to be part of a digital citizenship. It means “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity” (oxford dictionary). Which relates to what digital citizenship means too. Being connected to the technology world, you need to have moral principles to follow so that you are not breaking any rules, as it is a lot easier to break rules throughout technology as you are behind a screen. This relates to cyberbullying, many people either have bullied others online or have been bullied online, statistics show that 36.5% of people say they have been cyberbullied over their lifetime. (https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/cyber-bullying-statistics) Cyberbullying is not appropriate, showing that this behaviour is not behaving ethically at all times. If you are bullying others online, then that is not following what it means to be a digital citizen. Another concept that is important in the digital world is security.
Security means “the state of being free from danger or threat” (oxford dictionary). Having security throughout technology practice is vital for being connected to the digital world. Especially today, as people can hack into your accounts and get your personal information and use that information. Who wants their personal information being stolen? Not just that, it protects you from just anyone seeing your photos, or where you may be travelling, from people you do not know at all. A web page explains that they saw a 95% increase ]0in this sort of activity in the last 6 months. https://www.zerofox.com/blog/often-social-media-accounts-hacked/. This means you could be putting yourself in danger by not being on private for an example, or not being aware of what information and details you are putting on your media about yourself. This then allows people who don’t follow the rules of what digital citizenship means, to put yourself at risk of danger. Ways of helping your security can include things like coming up with a strong password, that no one would think of, and being on private, which relates to the concept of privacy.
Privacy means “a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people” (oxford dictionary). Just like being a teacher as a profession, they protect their security by not having their full names on their social media platforms. This protects their social and personal life from their work life, so no kids/students can add them or see what they are doing in their home life. Many other professions have to or tend to follow the privacy concept, so that they are protecting themselves and their information from others who may not follow the digital citizenship concepts. It is important for a number of reasons to be careful with what information about yourself you upload throughout your technologies, one reason being that what information is collected by one company can be shared to another. Which means you lose control over your own personal information. Most importantly this all comes back to having a clean digital footprint.
Following the concepts of digital citizenship will create a clean digital footprint, digital footprint is “a trail of data you create while using the Internet. It includes the websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit to online services.” (https://techterms.com/definition/digital_footprint) Everyone online has a digital footprint, therefore it is wise to consider what trail you are leaving behind, to make sure you are acting as a digital citizen. Being a proactive learner and behaving ethically with technology, is vital for a professional digital footprint. As you can be tracked with what you are doing and saying on your social media, which can affect your profession if you are behaving in a non-digital citizen way. If not all, majority of professions are helped by technology, whether it was to get your degree or to continue to learn more about your job, therefore you need to be willing to learn, which relates to being a proactive learner. Being a proactive learner relates to the idea of being a ‘can do person’, meaning the person makes things happen instead of waiting for things to happen. This concept relates to digital citizenship as it shows being responsible and having the willingness to learn, which helps you succeed in both your personal and professional lifestyles.
Not only do you want a clean digital footprint for your personal life, but definitely for your professional life, as you could be putting your profession at risk. For example, if you are a Teacher, and you are being nasty on a social media platform, you would be at a high risk of losing your job, this would be the same with many other professions. This then relates to your personal digital footprint, if you are not being honest with who you are through your technology, then you are putting yourself at risk of not being able to get jobs, this being only one example. With both professional and personal, you want a clean digital footprint, which means behaving in an ethically way at all times.
Overall, acting as part of a digital citizenship community, means acting in an ethical manner, while giving the energy to learn through the technologies of today, with assistance from the seven concepts above to allow yourself to be the best digital citizen in today’s society.
Resources:
Oxford dictionary- https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/cyber-bullying-statistics)
https://www.zerofox.com/blog/often-social-media-accounts-hacked/