Digital Citizenship in Schools

"In all my work on online child safety issues, I always try to stress how important education and media literacy efforts are. Indeed, technical parental control tools and methods, while important, should be viewed as just one part of a more holistic approach to encouraging digital literacy and digital citizenship. In recent years, many scholars and child development experts such as Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, Anne Collier and Larry Magid of ConnectSafely.org, Marsali Hancock of iKeepSafe, Common Sense Media, the Family Online Safety Institute, and many others have worked to expand traditional education and media literacy strategies to place the notion of digital citizenship at the core of their lessons and recommendations."

"The 20-year-old from Sydney's western suburbs is at the centre of Australia's first ''sexting'' case, after a schoolgirl sent a nude photo of herself to his mobile phone. The maximum penalty he faces is a two-year jail term."

"By being proactive about internet safety, the Svanascinis are in the forefront of modern families. Too many, experts say, worry about what their kids are up to and what might happen to them but feel they lack the expertise to do much about it. With recent headlines about the potentially destructive effects of cyberbullying - and before that about online predators - those fears can take on an almost desperate edge. Forty-two per cent of kids have been bullied online, and 30 per cent have been threatened, according to i-SAFE, an internet safety non-profit organisation. "

Here is the follow up article with James Paul Gee (sorry I put the wrong name in the previous note).

This is part 2 of the Q&A on Games and Learning with James Paul Gee.

I began to read this with great anticipation but, in the end, it's s set of useful statistics and diagrams on social media use by tertiary educators and institutions for communication rather than a detailed explanation of the use of social media in learning. The information about US college applications and social media is a wake-up call as well.

The message is making all the way to NewsCorp.

"In Digital Age, Learning Civics Means Doing Civics Traditional civic education has required students to memorize basic facts about American government, call it the what, who, and when model for civic literacy. The primary source of information has been textbooks, a source of literacy that has not always been the most accurate or inclusive. And while books (in various forms) will certainly continue to play a role in civic education emerging digital media platforms will be key in the effort to engage, invigorate, and create an informed citizenry. The rise of digital media offers a unique opportunity to add a more experiential dimension to civic education. Digital technologies can, of course, be used to teach kids basic civic facts, but they can also serve as an entry point into "doing" civics. This happened in a Minneapolis third grade class I visited earlier this year. "

"Most existing scholarship that measures the impact of the Internet on civic or political engagement focuses on political uses of new media. Drawing on two large panel studies, we find that youth engagement in nonpolitical online participatory cultures may serve as a gateway to participation in important aspects of civic and political life, including volunteering, community problem-solving, protest activities, and political voice. These relationships remain statistically significant for both datasets, even with controls for prior levels of civic and political participation and a full range of demographic variables. While politically driven online participation is clearly worthy of attention, these findings indicate that it should not be seen as the only relevant bridge from online activity to civic and political engagement."

"At the same time, numerous well-meaning nonprofits appeared, seeking to help educators communicate with parents and students, but still through a lens of fear and protection. Many experts now believe this was very much the wrong approach. "We missed the boat by concentrating on internet predators," says Patti Agatston, a nationally recognized counselor and cofounder of Cyberbullyhelp.com. Larry Magid, codirector of ConnectSafely.org, concurs that "predation is statistically so unlikely that it's not where we should be putting our resources." "

"The potential for danger increases when Twitter squatters go to great lengths - often through the use (and abuse) of legitimate images or biographical material - to look and sound like the real thing. The good news for most average Joes is that Twitter squatters are more likely to have big corporations and celebrities in their crosshairs."

Check out the additional resources linked here.

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills.

"Companies who want to know more about prospective employees can learn a lot by checking their Facebook profiles, according to a new study. Jennifer Golbeck and colleagues at the University of Maryland surveyed the public profiles of nearly 300 Facebook users for information about their favourite activities, TV shows, movies, music, books, quotes, and membership in political or other organisations. They also looked at the "About Me" and "blurb" sections. The work did not include status updates or other data that is only available to users' online friends."

"We're excited to announce the Grand Prize of the 2011 What's Your Story? Internet safety video contest!"

"SOME 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, a study released yesterday said. More than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely without parental supervision, leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to identity theft to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports said."

"More than 5 million online U.S. households experienced some type of abuse on Facebook in the past year, including virus infections, identity theft, and for a million children, bullying, a Consumer Reports survey shows. And consumers are at risk in myriad other ways, according to our national State of the Net survey of 2,089 online households conducted earlier this year by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Here are the details: "