Ashley’s Weblog

After discussing the issue of Digital Citizenship in class, I decided that is something I could learn more about and discuss in my blog. After reading more about this, I realized that it is basically the same as everyday citizenship. Just as we have rights, expectations and laws as humans, we have these same things while using technology.

In everyday life we must follow social codes and morals in order to present ourselves in a positive way. Much goes the same for our behavior when we are using the internet. A Digital Citizenship website contains nine themes of digital citizenship. Topics such as etiquette, rights and responsibilities, law, commerce, communication, literacy, security, access and health & wellness make up the nine themes. I assume you will see the familiarity between these themes and the themes of our citizenship in society.

Alec does a good job analyzing these themes and discussing them on his blog. I am also wondering about a lot of the same things that Alec does when he asks what we should do about things such as the Star Wars kid. One thing I think we can think about with digital citizenship is to use our morals and values as well as good judgment. As I stated in an earlier blog, this will vary from person  to person, so not everyone will do the right thing, or present themselves in an appropriate manner.

For students I think it is important that we let them know the dangers of presenting yourself inappropriately on the internet. We should have our students set up blogs so they can be seen on the internet in an educational way, not just on facebook or other social networks. Someone in class said that if you wouldn’t put it on your front door, don’t put it on the internet. This is a really good saying and I will  be sure to use it when I am teaching. I think it ties into digital citizenship because how you present yourself on the computer
reflects yourself off the computer as well.