Throughout the ETL523 module, my understanding of digital citizenship has shifted from viewing it primarily as a matter of online safety and teaching responsible behaviour to appreciating its wider ethical and influential role in students’ lives. I now view digital citizenship as a respectful behavioural expectation and a framework for preparing students to navigate, contribute to, and engage with digital spaces. The module has enhanced my appreciation of the complexity of supporting students’ digital identities and literacies within the school’s digital learning environment (DLE).

A turning point in my thinking came through engaging with the concept of cyber-wisdom (Polizzi & Harrison, 2022), which highlighted the importance of values-based and context-sensitive education and questioned my earlier practice of delivering standalone ‘e-safety’ lessons, prompting me to rethink how we embed digital ethics and in-depth reflective opportunities into our library curriculum, as well as throughout our teaching practice. The recognition that digital citizenship must reflect students’ real-world practices (Harris et al., 2023) echoed my personal experience — students immerse themselves in digital environments, but our teaching often fails to reflect the realities they navigate online.

Through my reflection on this subject, I have come to recognise the importance of the Teacher Librarian position and that it is unique in being able to lead digital citizenship initiatives. Our cross-curricular perspective, expertise in information literacy, and collaborative work with teaching staff enable us to model ethical, inclusive, and critically engaged digital practices. In my own context, I have now begun mapping digital citizenship outcomes across our inquiry-based library curriculum, aligning them with the FOSIL cycle stages of Connect, Wonder, and Reflect.

This module has also encouraged me to critically analyse our school’s infrastructure and leadership structures. Despite having high-quality digital tools and systems, we lack clarity about who leads digital citizenship education. The gap analysis reporting process brought to light the importance of shared responsibility and coordinated planning, aspects I had not previously considered in depth. I now recognise the need to advocate for clearer accountability structures — potentially through appointing a Digital Citizenship Coordinator or forming an interdisciplinary team — as outlined in my final report.

Engaging in the module discussions allowed me to consider multiple perspectives from others across various settings, which helped widen my understanding of digital citizenship’s practical and philosophical implications. This opportunity helped me recognise the importance of professional dialogue, especially when navigating new challenges such as generative AI and digital well-being. Oddone et al. (2024) reinforced this through their assertion that Teacher Librarians must help their colleagues critically evaluate and model ethical technology use—a role I am becoming more confident in fulfilling.

The Digital Citizenship in Schools module has cemented my stance that digital citizenship education must be intentional, integrated, and inclusive which, as a Teacher Librarian, I have the responsibility and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to.

References

Harris, A., Walton, J., Johns, A., Caluya, G., Webster, N., Miranda, D., Strong, K., & Kubow, P. K. (2023). Toward Global Digital Citizenship: “Everyday” Practices of Young Australians in a Connected World. In Contestations of Citizenship, Education, and Democracy in an Era of Global Change (1st ed., pp. 133–155). Routledge.

Oddone, K., Garrison, K., & Gagen-Spriggs, K. (2024). Navigating Generative AI : The Teacher Librarian’s Role in Cultivating Ethical and Critical Practices. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 73(1), 3–26.

Polizzi, G., & Harrison, T. (2022). Wisdom in the digital age: A conceptual and practical framework for understanding and cultivating cyber-wisdom. Ethics and Information Technology., 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09640-3