E09Fall2012

Lorton is named for a village in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria in England, the hometown of Joseph Plaskett who settled in the area running a general store and opened the Lorton Valley, Virginia Post Office on November 11, 1875.

We leave a digital trail of breadcrumbs and establish our digital selves by sharing, commenting, and communicating like never before

Digital Citizenship is a principle that helps users understand how to utilize technology in an appropriate way

But in classrooms, teachers monitor the activities of students as they always have. In regards to students adding or accessing inappropriate content, we have software that reports this information to us.

Most students still push through a seven- or eight-period day, 45-day quarter and 180-day school year. Unfortunately, mandates, physical plant limitations, local political pressures and institutional traditions have limited even the best intentions of rethinking the traditional school calendar and schedule. This is why the flexibility found in virtual schooling environments (1) should be so attractive to educators, students and parents alike. Not bound by the constraints of physical space or out-of-date school calendars, virtual schools can provide opportunities for students to take courses at a time and place that meets their needs

oo often, independent virtual schools might be no more than diploma mills openly competing against local schools.

Instead of competing, virtual schools need to partner with local schools and allow individual students to create what Staker and Horn (2) call a "self blend model."

Still, digital citizenship entails more than just protecting oneself. Incidents of cyberbullying and harassment continue to occur regularly,

Somewhere between kids’ intuitive social savvy and their online behavior lies an opportunity for both parents and educators to teach responsible digital citizenship, and there are plenty of organizations dedicated to this task alone.

Educators have lots of options in modeling good digital citizenship with projects they can embark upon with students

            A digital citizen is one who knows what is right and wrong, exhibits intelligent technology behavior, and makes good choices when using technology.

Teens share considerably more information online than their parents and, as a result, expose themselves to more risk

The encouraging results suggest that American parents and teens are actively managing their online reputations—and with an eye toward good digital citizenship

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training

o how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

Use classroom helpers or “employees” to help you run the room so you are free to teach.

use proximity and language to sort out what’s happening. Do it with a neutral tone of voice and with a smile on your face whenever possible.

8 elements of Digital Literacy

Cultural [Cu] Cognitive [Cg] Constructive [Cn] Communication [Co] Confidence [Cf] Creative [Cr] Critical [Ct] Civic [Ci]

he following is my interpretation of how they might be used for teaching and learning in a primary classroom