Digital Citizenship in Schools

"Furthermore, the global average piracy rate for PC software in 2010 was 42 percent, the second-highest figure in the eight years the BSA has been conducting its worldwide study. Piracy rates are considerably higher in some developing markets, including averages of 60 percent in the Asia Pacific region, and 64 percent in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. And the BSA believes one of the reasons piracy is so widespread is that many users of pirated software don't actually understand that they're stealing."

The Connect.ed program covers: cyberbullying; sexting; excessive internet use; mobile use; e-security; managing your digital reputation; and digital profiling. It also "advises teachers on what young people of all ages are doing online and draws on Australian experts in the cybersafety field, as well as on teachers and students themselves," ACMA says.

I'm really excited about this article. Although the American laws may seem foreign, we have similar privacy and child protection laws. What caught my attention was the strategies to encourage and monitor the use of social media by learning groups and the inclusion of three elements of my own social media policy, namely alternative work options, the use of real names and initial rather than avatar and the recording of the effectiveness of using social media.

presentation

"Victoria police Staff Sgt. Darren Laur said he's always surprised at who adds him as a Facebook friend. His more than 2,000 "friends," mostly teens, think he's a 15-year-old girl they have never met, not a 46-year-old cop looking to make an example out of them. Laur said he's trying to teach kids that by opening up their social networking sites to strangers, they're potentially giving away personal information such as phone numbers, addresses, emails and friends' names, which could be dangerous in the wrong hands."

Definetheline.ca: Clarifying the Blurred Lines between Cyber-bullying and Socially Responsible Digital Citizenship. Welcome to Definetheline.ca. The objective of our research team at McGill University is to share our expertise with policy-makers, teachers, parents, educators and youth (11 - 17) in user-friendly ways that help all stakeholders engage, learn from, and share resources on our website. We also have a fun section for children (ages 5 - 11) that will promote responsible, thoughtful and considerate digital citizens from an early age. Defining Digital Citizenship and Socially Responsible Online Communication: Social media and a range of digital technologies provide enormous opportunities for peaceful and supportive global interaction, international learning collaboration and fruitful educational partnerships. Every digital user has the potential to reach communities in all corners of the world through transformational online leadership and responsible digital citizenship by embracing the fundamental principles that underlie constitutional rights to free expression, privacy, safety, fair and equality.

Here's one for all you twitterbugs. Unfortunately, as I understand it, secondary students are not really users of Twitter.

"Hyper Alerts is a feature for everybody who wants email reports of posts and comments on a Facebook Page. You don't have to be an administrator of the page to get our email alerts, and you can have as many subscriptions as you want. You can get the alerts within minutes, or a digest every hour, day, week or month."

Video and Resources coming Sept 2011.

Social Networking: The Unharnessed Educational Tool interesting article

"The Cybercitizen Awareness Program educates children and young adults on the danger and consequences of cyber crime. By reaching out to parents and teachers, the program is designed to establish a broad sense of responsibility and community in an effort to develop smart, ethical and socially conscious online behavior in young people."

Great tools and slide shows

Transliteracy - librarians by day

This slide share I discovered on You tube and then appeared on a link to this website. It really helped me to understand the importance ofunderstanding what it is and why it is important to comprehend it

"Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets."

Lyn Hays key note speaker Interesting slide show

An answer to the question, "In the 21st century, what does a school librarian do?" I found this very interesting to read but overwhelming too. The school librarian is expected to be able to do so much, however I feel if we take one or two aspects at a time and slowly developed these, our confidence and interest to pursue others increases.  I am going to give this article to my colleagues to read and reflect upon at my next TL meeting.  I look forward to hearing their responses.