Digital Citizenship for Schools
Digital Citizenship Curriculum Empowers Students to Navigate the Digital World Responsibly
Proudly serving Cooper City since 2000
i-Tech Support specializes in providing digital citizenship curriculums for schools in the Cooper City, FL area. Our expert digital citizenship consultants can help you choose and implement a digital citizen curriculum for your school. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you prepare your students for the online world.
Digital citizenship is a set of guidelines that can be implemented to ensure students of all ages have a framework that allows them to navigate the digital world responsibly and appropriately.
At i-Tech Support we support this mission. We are your trusted local source for tools to help implement digital citizenship curriculum for schools. Contact us today to learn more or to speak with a digital citizenship for schools consultant.
Why Do I Need A Digital Citizenship Curriculum?
Digital citizenship is essential for schools that are utilizing hybrid or digital space teaching. In our digital age, more and more gravity weighs on our digital image, and if we do not teach our children to navigate in a responsible way, they could potentially damage their image or affect their online development.
Here are some other important reasons to adopt digital citizenship in your school:
- Character Building: teaching important skills like positivity and constructive criticism, instills a level of respect both for themselves and others, in digital spaces. It also helps develop future character
- Self-Protection: cyberbullying is not a new concept, but it is an important one to focus awareness on. Students who are knowledgeable about cyberbullying are better equipped to handle it effectively.
- Tech Ownership: teaching digital citizenship to students allows them to take ownership over their devices in a way that allows them to be secure, but knowledgeable about the digital world and its drawbacks.
- Acquired Knowledge: education about digital citizenship allows the students to acquire knowledge that will lead to effective communication and social participation.
- Authentic Experiences: not only is real information abundant online but so is the fake. Teaching students digital citizenship allows them to identify sources of false information and to critically choose a more authentic choice.
- Real-Time Access: curriculum designed with up-to-date information and a continuing library of new topics added concurrently, students can learn at the speed of technology, not behind it.
- Trusted Partnerships: digital citizenship is so important that we worked with trusted educational partners to develop it. It is already designed to fit within current teaching constructs as a way to amplify learning, not confuse it.
How Do I Choose a Digital Citizenship Curriculum?
As a school leader, you have important decisions to make when purchasing new technology for your school, and digital citizenship should be a part of this decision-making process.
When choosing a curriculum for your schools, consider these factors in your choice:
- Choose Authentic Over Tech-Hype
When it comes to technology, it is easy to get caught up in the bell-and-whistles. When shopping for software, make sure it includes authentic interactions. Interactions between student and content, and between students is a critical component missing in the digital classroom, that can be supplemented with the right software. - Choose a 360-degree Integration
Don’t settle for a portion of integration, go with the whole kit-and-kaboodle to be most effective. Lessons on digital citizenship can be incorporated into any topic, but ensure the integrations are intentional and not forced. Both curriculum and policies should be integrated seamlessly for them to work holistically. - Consider 100% Access
Don’t forget the lessons learned by the pandemic. Ensure your curriculum is going to be available for all students, across the board. The pandemic taught us that having a hotspot did not mean effective access to the internet. This is something that will have to be addressed before implementing new technology. - Consider the Gravity of the Situation
To effectively implement a digital citizenship strategy, you need to consider the pressures put on students of all ages. On a given day, students will navigate online friendships and versions of digital self-care, while at the same time trying to learn how to disconnect. The right digital citizenship education can help ease these pressures by demonstrating healthy digital habits.