After a few busy months away from Ed Tech UAE, I am finally back and couldn’t be more excited to get into the latest subject in my CSU Masters of Education journey, may I formally introduce ETL523 Digital Citizenship.

Now I am excited for many reasons. First, I am looking forward to getting back into the blogosphere and this subject provides the perfect, brain stimulating material needed to do this. As a classroom teacher and now digital technology teacher, I have taught everything from PE to English, Geography, Drama and Robotics and for me digital citizenship, although arguably the most important set of skills and knowledges needed for the 21st century, continues to slip through the cracks in K-12 schools. I’ve been there, I understand. Reading, reading, reading, Counting, counting, counting. A day in a classroom can be instantaneously filled with fundamental learning experiences without even acknowledging the existence of the digital world. So many questions come to mind. How should we rank or value digital citizenship against other KLA’s such as mathematics, humanities or science? Where does digital citizenship actually fit in schools and curriculum? Who teaches? Who learns it? What actually is it? I am a digital citizen? Is there are difference between being a digital citizen in the UAE verse Australia? Or the world? Is digital citizenship different depending on which country you are in? Or is it a global term?

The second reason I am excited to get into this subject, is the complete relevancy to my current work. I am in the planning stages of developing four Digital Citizenship units from students in Grades 4 to 9 at my school. There is nothing my satisfying than putting research into practice. I hate reading for the sake of reading (unless its a fun holiday novel), so to have the opportunity to delve into research and collaborate and share ideas with other educators, provides my programming with a whole new dimension.

I think this is going to be a very exciting semester ahead. Stay tuned.