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There. I said it. Someone had to. Everyone is talking about #digcit right now. Maybe the term is finally catching on. Maybe it’s just the buzzword phrase school districts are using as they roll out 1:1 initiatives. Maybe these lessons have staying power; maybe they don’t. But I do know one thing….John Dewey would hate your #digcit curriculum. “Who is this John Dewey?” you ask. If you’ve ever taken a course in educational psychology, his name should ring a bell. Dewey was an

Today I had the pleasure of co-hosting a coffee chat with my financial advisor and some of her clients. We spoke in general about the ways misinformation can lead to serious offline consequences. And for this audience in particular, we discussed online frauds and scams that target our pocketbooks. Just yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission released an annual report on consumer fraud. In 2020, consumers reported a total of $304 million in losses due to scams. Internet roman

Instead of teaching these skills in isolation, you can hack them in to your content standards or learning targets.

I have always struggled with requests to speak to families about digital citizenship. Part of my trepidation came from feeling like I had to be the person with 'all the right answers' for any digital dilemma a parent might bring up. It also made me uncomfortable to engage in such personal dialogue with a community of people of which I was not a member. Finally, I've always stood firm in my belief that digital citizenship should not be a standalone, one-time set of lessons in

As a high school librarian, I know how important it is for my students to navigate and utilize academic databases. Ninety five percent of our students graduate with plans to continue their education, and will be expected to conduct research through their college or university library subscriptions. Teaching students to navigate the databases is not the hardest part of my job, though. The most difficult part is convincing students that they are worth exploring. Every time I am

I came across a GEM of a find today when curating digital citizenship resources for teachers. Why aren’t any of my #digcit pals talking about the resources from Teaching Tolerance? Is it because we have yet to fully equate digital citizenship with anything BUT behavior management? In my work, I’ve been trying to get educators thinking beyond personal responsibility and behavior management when they talk about digital citizenship. After all, being in community with others is

You don’t have to be using the latest app or social media site to have conversations with your students about life online. Instead of shying away, provide your students a safe space to talk with you about their digital experiences. You can use images like the ones below (and hundreds of others linked here !) as a way to kick off the conversation. Need a few ideas for purposeful integration? Try incorporating bell ringers , a gallery walk, or even just some discussion cards

You can create a safe space for your students to engage in conversation about digital topics with though-provoking images and a variety of activities. Students of all ages can use the  image/discussion cards  I’ve created in a variety of ways. Asking students to group images and assign groups a label will force them to engage in discussion and analysis of the artwork in front of them. The questions on the back of the image cards can make great journal prompts, debate topics,

One of the common concerns I hear about digital citizenship education is that there just “isn’t enough time in the day” to have conversations with kids about living life in digital communities. Having conversations about our digital selves, our digital communities, and our global society can happen in small doses across content areas. Today I created a few bell-ringer slides that you can use to kick off class. Have students free write their thoughts in a journal or ask them t

This is my second reflective blog post on the #DigCit Summit , which was held on 10/28/16 at Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco. I had the pleasure and the privilege of speaking on a panel regarding “What’s Next for Digital Citizenship,” but also got to spend the rest of the day listening to other speakers in education, business, and technology. In my first reflective post, I replied to some speakers’ desire to remove the word ‘digital’ from the Digital Citizenship convers

This weekend (10/28/16) I had the honor and the pleasure of sitting on a panel of speakers during the # DigCitSummit , which was held at Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco. During this eight hour day of speaking, listening, and collaborating, there were several big ideas I felt compelled to write about as I reflected and digested my learning. Let’s start with the topic of this conference – “digital citizenship”: a term that has been living on the outskirts of academia for

Have you heard the Brad Paisley song, I’m So Much Cooler Online ? The lyrics to that song, specifically the chorus, have been going through my head a lot in the last few weeks. I have had Library Media Center Directors and technology leaders from around the area contacting me to see if they could make a visit to our library. People hear about the work my team and I have been doing through this blog and through my posts on Twitter and other social media sites, and I guess the