Ad4dcss/Digital Citizenship

From the Business Software Alliance (BSA.) Computers make it easy to make copies of computer software, pictures, words, movies and songs. But copyright laws make it illegal to copy the creative work without the owner's permission. Making copies of a work protected by copyright is just like stealing. The B4UCopy educational curriculum program, available for free download, has a goal of raising awareness of copyright laws and reinforce responsible behavior online.

Courtesy of the Computer Ethics Institute.

Rising concerns about computer security are evident in the San Jose Mercury News three-part series which focused on everything from phishing schemes and identity theft to student safety on the Internet. In many districts, technology directors are finding they have to do more and more to insure that data is not compromised and to see that students are not using school networks to access inappropriate content.
Part I: How online crooks put us all at risk
Part II: How well are we protecting ourselves?
Part III: U.S. targets terrorists as online thieves run amok

This wiki was created for school library media specialists by Dr. Donna Baumbach and Dr. Judy Lee, University of Central Florida. The purpose is to provide information about some of the new web-based tools (Web 2.0) and how they can be used and are being used by school library media specialists and their students and teachers. Much of the information--including identifying a need for this kind of information--is the result of a survey conducted in 2008 of over 600 school library media specialists about their knowledge and use of web-based tools in library media programs.

[May 2008] AASA article gives examples of school organizations that are desperately and inappropriately blocking the future and Scott McLeod pleads, "Please don't block the future." Please don't relegate your students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to second-class status in the new economy because you left it to them and their families to figure out on their own what it means to be digital, global citizens. Ask AASA and its state affiliates to provide more technology leadership-related professional development opportunities. And let us know how we can help.

Original coverage of the Olivia Gardner story in the San Francisco Chronicle. See: Bullied girl finds comfort in letters from hundreds of strangers, a campaign begun by two Mill Valley sisters in 2007.

For a wide range of topics/resources on Digital Citizenship, check out this Diigo List. All resources have been tagged and cataloged from the entries found in the Ad4dcss Diigo Group on Digital Citizenship. This just makes them easier to find when educators are preparing a workshop or focusing on a specific topic area.

Spoof on Little Red Riding Hood. Cute, short safety video for student education to initiate a discussion about friending people you don't really know on Facebook.

This video was great to teach students about sharing information. A good way to start a lesson on internet safety or use in your curriculum. Use a wiki site and make a curriculum where the students can do a self study with some of the videos.

This article offers seven things all adults need to know about social networking sites like MySpace.
1. Social networking is enormously popular with young adults.
2. Friends are probably just that.
3. Blocking sites at school won't keep kids away from MySpace.
4.Some degree of danger does exist for MySpace users.
5. The MySpace organization is working toward a safer online
6. Teachers might want to check to see if they have had a MySpace account created for them.
7.MySpace and social networking have value.

An effective school-based strategy to address the issue of online safety should include these six key components:
EDUCATIONAL USE - Schools must ensure that when students use the Internet, their activities have an educational purpose -- class assignments, extra credit work, and perhaps some high quality enrichment activities as a reward
SUPERVISION AND MONITORING Schools must shift focus from reliance on filtering to better supervision and monitoring.
MEANINGFUL CONSEQUENCES Misuse of the Internet must lead to a meaningful consequence -- but it should be recognized that suspension of Internet access privileges just causes more work for teachers. Requiring a service contribution to the school and establishing "close monitoring status" for all Internet use are preferable consequences.
ACCIDENTAL ACCESS TO PORN - All students and staff must know that if inappropriate material appears, they should quickly turn off the monitor or turn it so it can't be seen, and then report it. Following any incident or discovery, there must be a responsible assessment of culpability.
INAPPROPRIATE BLOCKING Selected staff in every school building must have the authority and ability to quickly override the filter to provide other staff or students access to sites that have been inappropriately blocked
INTERNET SAFETY AND RESPONSIBLE USE EDUCATION Schools must provide effective Web 2.0 Internet safety and responsible use education to students and parents.

Legal Implications for Searching Student Cell Phones. Although this article is written against Michigan law, it does help clarify some of the concepts for what is permissable. Note that searching a student's cell phone or wireless device without parent permission may violate state wiretapping laws.

Confiscating and looking at information on cell phones by school officials is still not clear. This is a very interesting case study for those working with digital citizenship issues at their school.

Fascinating article explaining Michigan take on searching and confiscating cell phones.

Stop Bullying Now! is a project of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources. The site offers offers flash movies, games, and information about bullying and how to prevent it.

Appropriate web etiquette (netiquette) and web safety are vital for building a strong web community. This is a lesson plan that teachers can use to introduce key concepts to their students as they introduce them to the Think.com community. Use this model lesson as designed, change it to fit your needs, or create your own.

From the UK Home Office Task Force: Best Practices for the providers of social networking and other user interactive services. Download the full Report.

The first UK Social Networking Guidance provides advice for industry, parents and children about how to stay safe online. This has been developed by a taskforce of representatives from industry, charity and law enforcement agencies including Vodafone, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

Danah Boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series [Harvard] to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.\n\nPrior to her presentation she explained, "Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement."

The use of web filters runs counter to 21st century learning. Great editorial from THE JOURNAL (Jun 08) on putting the filter in student heads by teaching them responsibility rather than locking them out of sites with filters.

A combustible mix of minors, sex and technology.

Anne Collier [NetFamilyNews] reports on the Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world users - as relayed by Sharon Duke Estroff, who spent a couple of weeks on Club Penguin observing what her 8-year-old son might experience there.

Middle School Lesson plans on cyberbullying, personal safety and predator education.

Dizzywood, a virtual world and online game for children ages 8-12, today announced that it has been selected by the YMCA of San Francisco to enhance the youth program's technology curriculum. The YMCA is using Dizzywood's virtual environment to reinforce its program emphasis on activities that promote values such as caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. Children also learn about important issues relating to virtual worlds, such as digital citizenship and online safety, as well as complete storytelling and team-building exercises that emphasize creativity, writing and reading skills, and working together to achieve goals. The YMCA program is similar to the elementary school program that Dizzywood recently completed with the Reed Union School District (Marin County, CA). The highly interactive workshop, which ran from April through June, used virtual activities to reinforce the school's character pillars, which include caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness, among other core values.