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James, C., Weinstein, E., & Mendoza, K. (2019). This report points to a collection of core insights about young people and digital life from the emerging EDD research and also includes insights from academic research on media and children,focusing particularly on challenges that U.S. tweens and teens face in their digital lives. This research lays the foundation for Common Sense Education's updated Digital Citizenship Curriculum. We describe the curriculum's unique approach, grounded in Project Zero's research,which focuses on pedagogical strategies that support both student skills and dispositions. The following sections outline the six key topics covered in the curriculum and address the importance of a whole-community approach among educators, students, and parents in creating a thriving culture of digital citizenship.

"Cyber-bullying, update-addiction, sexting - from the perspective of a parent raising a ''digital native'' child, social media seems fraught with dangers. But new research suggests the risks inherent in social media use by younger generations might be overblown. danah boyd, assistant research professor at Harvard and principal researcher for Microsoft Research - like k.d.lang, she prefers the lower case - has completed a large-scale study on how US teenagers use the internet in general, and social media in particular. Her book is called It's Complicated, and is the result of in-depth interviews with scores of teens over an eight-year period."

"This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students' interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author's action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students' reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools. The authors use Graham Nuthall's (2007) "lens on learning" to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning."

The project-based methods used in the Digiteen Project are teaching students about digital citizenship by immersing then in authentic research and student-designed action projects. The DigiTeacher workshop is modeled after the principles used in the Digiteen Project and will use a wide variety of Web 2.0 research and collaborative tools in conjunction with project-based methods. Understand why this method works by experiencing it! Material for this workshop is found in the newly released book, 'Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time', by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay.

A useful list that clearly explains some keys to successful digital research

""Research demonstrates that many youth are disengaged from traditional forms of civic and political life but are very engaged with new media," said Mills College Professor of Education Joseph Kahne, the author of the study. "Our study findings strongly suggest that there are ways to build on their engagement with digital media to foster engagement in civic life." The study debunks the notion that young people, because they are growing up with technology, are so-called "digital natives", who naturally learn to use the Internet for information and discourse. Most young people, in fact, have a lot to learn about using online information and social media resources to better understand their role in society and politics. The research indicates that Literacy 2.0 education can directly influence young people toward civic involvement and political participation. Teaching new literacies, such as credibility assessment, is essential for supporting a healthy democracy, the report concludes. The findings make a strong case for increased digital literacy programs for both students and parents."

"New research from the ACMA is casting a clear light on what Aussie teens are involved in, online. It shows that kids from 14 - 17 years are, unsurprisingly, active players in Australia's digital economy, who are online more often than ever before, use the internet and mobiles for everything from entertainment to shopping, research, banking and sharing with friends."

A study into parents' need for cybersafety information, including what topics they would like more information on, and the format that they would like to receive it in. The study is based on research undertaken by the ACMA in 2009. Research consisted of a brief qualitative phase, followed by a national telephone survey of 600 parents of children in the 4 to 17 age range.

""Cyber-bullying, because of its perceived anonymity and infinite on-line audiences, has attracted media spotlight with the advent and increased use of digital and social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter," said Prof. Shaheen Shariff, who has pioneered research into the phenomenon since she joined McGill's Faculty of Education eight years ago. Now, a McGill research team led by Shariff has launched a new website, www.definetheline.ca, to help kids better understand the risks and their responsibilities - and to help parents, teachers and policy makers sort through the issues and implications. It promises to become a valuable resource for educators across North America, providing advice from leading experts in a user-friendly format."

UW-Eau Claire Professor of Criminal Justice Justin Patchin talks about the research he is doing as a Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center.

Older research but interesting to read.

"Ever wondered how students really act online? What they're actually sharing with their friends? Heck, if they're even using their real name and other information? Chances are good about 1 of every 4 teens seem to have a 'fake' social media account with false information. There's a lot more to this new privacy study on what teens actually share by the Pew Research Center that you should check out too."

"I set out to answer these questions through a study of attitudes, which compared digitally literate students' to digitally-challenged teachers and visa versa. In this study being undertaken at Swinburne University and sponsored by the Wesley College Institute for Innovation in Education, 321 students in years 9 and 10 and 100 educators were surveyed about their attitudes to digital literacy and the use of digital technologies. The schools were co-educational independent schools with laptop programs and significant differences were observed in student and educator attitudes towards each other's digital literacy. The hypothesis, "that there is a disconnect between the digitally capable students and digitally challenged educators in schools with laptop programs, limiting effective use of digital technology in the classroom" was supported in the findings. This has repercussions for educating "net generation" students and implications for the implementation of the National Secondary Computer Fund and National Broadband Network. The disconnect was revealed in terms of attitudes towards technology in the classroom, teaching pedagogy, internet use, adoption of cutting-edge technologies and limitations placed on school laptops and networks. In this study 57 statements were provided to research participants, who were then grouped into four groups: digitally capable students, digitally challenged students, digitally capable educators and digitally challenged educators."

Found in Communication Research and Practice: Vol 6, No 1 Abstract: Around the world policymakers are exploring the kinds of skills and competencies that teenagers need to have to contribute to society as digital citizens. Based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child framework, and informed by critical analysis of discourses around digital citizenship, this paper explores the competencies already demonstrated by many adolescents and addresses the priorities identified by policymakers. It compares the top-down adult policymakers' blueprints for digital citizenship with the performances of citizenship by many young people, who mobilise digital resources to communicate with powerful others as a means of progressing their aims. Drawing upon examples of small-scale teenage activism, and linking these to some of the big questions of the age: climate change, gender equity and social justice, the paper moves beyond discussions of tech-addiction and online passivity to investigate adolescents' strategic engagement in digital spaces to achieve a more equitable future.

"WeChat is just the latest platform that intermediates interactions between teachers, parents, students," says Danah Boyd, a Microsoft researcher who studies social media and the author of It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. "No intervention around the technology will make any difference if the pressure-cooker culture doesn't change."

One of the DML Research Hib videos. Mimi Ito discusses the move to connected learning in the digital age. A must watch for ETL523 students.

This quiz is for students who have discussed digital citizenship and read the research written by Mike Ribble. The questions are right out of his research for his paper. It provides definitions of terms and then checks students knowledge - very engaging and useful.

Internet Acceptable Use Policy: Educational Rationale: As part of our educational curriculum at the Junior School we are aiming to develop the research and communication skills in all of our boys. In doing this, we wish to carry out research in the most efficient and current means of doing this.

Increasingly, students need to acquire the important skill of critical thinking. Content is growing exponentially on the web, and students are exposed to increasing amounts of erroneous material, misleading, biased or opinionated accounts and false research. During the last week I have been thinking about how teachers can address this issue. One of the new digital literacies students need to acquire is the ability to distinguish the good from the bad content. How do we instill these critical skills in our learners?