Week 7 Digital Citizenship

For this week, I will be discussing Digital Citizenship.

                Digital citizenship is basically how each individual is known, participates, and acts in the online world.  One video made available in my graduate course explains how digital citizenship is the first step for students to become media literate in the new age of technology.  Similar to drivers’ education for new drivers, digital citizenship is the precursor for students to understand how their online presence can affect them in their personal and professional lives. 

                Digital citizenship can have a massive impact on one’s personal life.  For me, digital citizenship includes any and all social media that I choose to participate in.  When the social media boom began, I believe I was well educated before hand which allowed me to pick and choose what social medias I would use.  When Facebook hit the scene, I was not a user until a few years after its release.  This allowed me to see my peers’ reviews and mistakes that they have already learned from.  This topic greatly relates to sharing.  Knowing what is appropriate to share ties right in with your digital citizenship. 

Another video that was made available to me shows the extreme measure of a young adult posting too much information on social media.  In the video it showed strangers asking personal questions simply because they followed her through social media.  I understand that it was showing the extreme point of view, but this simple fact must be presented to young students.  Digital citizenship can also have a major impact on one’s professional life.  In my senior year of college, when everyone was getting ready to graduate and begin the job search, most if not all of my friends changed their Facebook names so potential employers wouldn’t be able to find them on social media.  I have heard of countless stories of people not getting jobs because what they have posted online and even some people getting fired from their job because recent or even past posts. 

Fortunately, I have never been a part of online bullying or even posts that can hurt feeling because I was educated early on to avoid the type of actions that could potentially evolve into having an online presence.  I have however seen cases of this many times on the news and through friends.  As far as what I would do differently, if I do ever come across this type of behavior I would like to take action and not be a bystander. 

All of the negatives with online use could definitely scare away educators from using online sources.  A teacher that might use a classroom twitter could be worried that their students would use that specific account for personal things rather then just for educational purposes.  As I stated before, as long as the education about digital citizenship and sharing happens early in a student’s education, I do not think that future educators will stop the use of online education.