DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

  In this lesson digital citizenship which is component of digital literacy, I have learnt that digital citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. Digital citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.

There has been a lot of online collaboration in this lesson including wiki collaboration. And the benefits of collaboration has continued to be manifested.

So online collaboration, like most digital phenomena, is good at solving very specific kinds of problems: time problems, distance problems and communication problems. By solving time problems it creates the benefit of 24/7 production cycles; by solving distance problems it enables newly diverse teams; and by solving communication problems it lets us work together in ways that tap into a broader set of skills and capacities. When we use online collaboration to support tasks and projects that specifically leverage these distinctive benefits, we go beyond treating online collaboration as a Band-Aid for the problem of dispersed teams and use it to actually move our work.

However online collaboration has some challenges among which include

1. Poor attitude by some of the members in the collaboration, to collaborate.
2. Having different work schedules.
3. Technology related problems like, luck of internet connections, electricity and computers. This is still a problem in our country and they are very expensive.

Now since Digital citizenship involves users knowing how to use technology appropriately.

I have curated some resources that I feel can be of good help to me and my students when using technology mainly surfing online.

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

Helpful advice and tools you can use to help keep your child safe whenever and wherever they go online

http://www.safekids.com/

Contains information about the dangers of children using the internet. Rules, advice, and tips relating to child security and the web.

http://www.netsmartz.org/InternetSafety

This site gives tips on how to deal with with challenges of online which include ;

•                                  Cyberbullying
•                                Exposure to inappropriate material
•                                                          Online predators
•                                                          Revealing too much personal information 

http://www.netsmartz.org/InternetSafety
This site is an interactive, educational program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) that provides age-appropriate resources to help teach children how to be safer on- and offline.

http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/publications/safeonline/
This website has different guidelines on how you can be safe online. This guide includes tips for people with learning disabilities on how to stay safe in social media and online.

These resources I plan to guide students to look critically at these sites and take note of how they can keep safe on the internet.

They need to appreciate the fact that when online they have to be able to know

·         How to look for information

·         How to filter the information

·         Evaluate it and use it accordingly.