1.2: Digital Citizen

Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

a. Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.
b. Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
c. Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
d. Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online.

Student Standard 2: Digital Citizen is, in my opinion, the most important student standard that there is. While it is not necessarily a creative or inspiring standard, it is focused on online safety and setting students up for success for the rest of their digital lives. One of the first projects that we completed in the DEL program was to create some sort of deliverable that represented our learning in our first class. For me, this looked like a set of infographics that students would be able to get fast and easily accessible reminders of how to be safe online and the important aspects of being a digital citizen. Take a peek at those infographics here: How to Thrive Online. 

My post, How to Thrive Online, represented my beginning understanding of how students can be digital citizens. As I continued to learn about what it meant to be a productive member of a digital world, I saw that this standard did more than just give a set of rules that helped students to manage their digital identity or manage their personal data. In a later course, I began to work on a community engagement project and wanted to focus on student engagement in “an interconnected digital world”. To me, this meant participating responsibly with others online and how social interaction could merge with learning opportunities. Read more about this project, Community Engagement Through Understanding by Design.