In this digital age, the standards for digital learning and teaching includes the importance of digital citizenship. What we do and say in the virtual world can most certainly affect the way people think of us in the physical world. As the availability and use of the internet grows, our digital citizenship will become more and more important, both online and offline.
The standards of online conduct have become a pressing matter. Some 'netizens' have developed inappropriate behaviour and attitudes that they are personally protected by distance and anonymity against any legal and/or ethical repercussions from what they post online. Students must learn to practice responsible use of the internet.
Teachers are obligated to advocate the development of a humanistic manner when communicating online. Just as we all learned throughout our physical lives to be socially acceptable, and that inappropriate behaviour and negative attitudes are not generally socially acceptable, we must also develop a socially acceptable manner when communicating on the internet.
Teachers need to help students understand that the ethical issues they learn and experience in society everyday also apply to the internet and their manner of communication online has a strong impact just as it does in society. Many students have not been taught appropriate use of online communication. If the students develop positive online attitudes then the educational value of internet communication will increase. The students will learn to collaborate with one another and the productivity of online assignments will be much more effective.
Legally, internet users are not protected by distance or even anonymity. Students must understand the law and learn to be safe about their identity and property, and other people's identity and property. Teachers and students need to follow copyright restrictions online as they would in any other manner. Posts must not be blatantly plagarized. Citations must be made where they are due. Any disregard of this can certainly result in legal issues.
The standards of conduct as a digital citizen must be taught to students in order to maintain a respectable media for teaching and communicating. As responsible digital citizens we maintain an online experience conducive to the development of digital education.
I agree with a bunch of your points Dave. I commented in my post on this topic that when I first starting using the net I was definitely one of those students that thought the net was a digital wild west where there were no consequences to my online actions. But, quickly I learned that this wasn't true and I swiftly changed my attitude towards the net. Now, I wasn't dumb enough to think that there were no legal boundaries so I wouldn't say I was the Black Bart of the net or something but I would definitely do a bit of trolling as they say. ha Didn't even know it was called that when I doing it. Ah youth! I try to let my students know that nowadays their behavior online can definitely jump up to bite them in the butt. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteDave I really enjoyed the fluency of your post. It really demonstrated the importance of online etiquette and the need to educate students in that field. They lack the same social upbringing our generation had, so it is our responsibility to identify that, accept it, and educate.
ReplyDelete