Module 9 Post

As a high school teacher, I have been tasked with teaching many mandated, provided lessons about cyberbullying and digital citizenship to my various advisory and homeroom groups. One thing that has always frustrated me is that the students never seemed to care or take the lessons seriously. Many students have told me that cyberbullying doesn't happen or isn't a real problem, but I think the real issue is that they don't connect what they experience online to this very artificial-seeming "cyberbullying" that they learn about at school.

Orech's article "How It's Done" mentions similar attempts by schools to "teach" students about digital citizenship through mandated lessons. He describes an alternative called the Digital Citizenship Project that encourages students to dive into the concept of digital citizenship by creating resources for authentic audiences and interacting with real people. My favorite aspect of the project is the mentoring that happens between middle and high school students. Cyberbullying.org's Preventing Cyberbullying: Top 10 Tips for Educators mentions the effectiveness of peer mentoring as well. I think part of why the typical lessons are ineffective is because they come across to students as forced or even preachy. However, students are much more likely to listen to social advice from older and more experienced peers, and mentoring seems like a great way to build those connections. I can imagine that my own students would feel a true sense of responsibility if they knew that younger students would be learning from them. I'd love to do something like this with my own classes.

I was surprised by some of the resources in Seven Digital Deadly Sins. Some of the examples, such as using Wikipedia as a library and sending digital birthday wishes (Sloth), seemed a little judgmental to me. I can see how some of the examples might turn people off from buying in to the concept of digital deadly sins. On the other hand, I appreciate how each example can prompt debate over what qualifies as digitally sinful vs. what is acceptable.


Orech, J (2012). How it's done: incorporating digital citizenship into your everyday curriculum. Tech & Learning, 33(1), 16–18.

Comments

  1. ElaynaHMarch 18, 2020 at 11:27 AM

    I was also surprised at some of the examples given about the Seven Digital Deadly Sins. I never thought much about seeing other people's vacation photos or even about being on Twitter too much, for me it's Facebook. It really made me think about things in a different way and I think it could be used to teach older students about digital choices. I think having something interactive would be better since they could lose interest quickly or may not take it as seriously. Having real life examples that are connected to them could possibly be more useful.

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