Digital Citizenship Week - Lesson Ideas Linking Content to Digital Citizenship

This week is Digital Citizenship Week.  A week to promote teaching digital citizenship to all of our students.

What is digital citizenship?

"Digital citizenship can be defined as the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use."  - digitalcitizenship.net

Why should we teach digital citizenship?
Our students are prolific users of technology, especially cell phones, and use it regardless of whether we allow the use of it in our classrooms.  However, our students don't always use technology in a responsible manner.  

It is up to us, as educators, to guide our students and teach them how to use technology as an educational tool, and to use it responsibly in all aspects of their lives.  And, since we don't always have access to computer labs, why not take advantage of the computers our students carry with them at all times?

Ideas to Teach Digital Citizenship & Take Advantage of Student Devices

• Use Google Classroom's Question feature to have an online discussion about a video, text, or activity you have done in class.  Teach students the proper way to write a response, and how to respectfully agree, disagree, or ask questions of each other.
• Have students write blog posts and comment on other's blogs to share their learning and ideas with others around the world, not just their classmates.
• Use Instagram to do a visual imagery lesson, and teach students how to properly post, use hashtags, and comment on each other's feeds.
• Use Twitter to participate in an online chat to practice argumentation with claims, evidence, and reasoning, as well as to develop a positive, professional, social media presence.