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When I first saw the title to this article, "Infographic: Citizenship in the digital age," it made me smile. The popularity of technology and the world wide wide is growing rapidly. It's not only for personal use anymore. We truly have reached a "digital age." Anything and everything can be done and is done through the internet. With technology growing and becoming more and more available in the classroom and at home. Children as young as 3 and 4 years old are having access to things we never thought would be possible. As funny as it may sound it is extremely accurate that this article compares all of the similarities between actual citizenship and digital citizenship. As up and coming teachers it is important that we not only address this issue to our students but to practice it and show it's significance. This especially applies to bullying. Bullying has become such a huge issue in our classrooms recently and the majority of it is cyber bullying. With the world wide web  being such a big part of our everyday lives, its scary to think about it's permanency  and possible effect on our lives. 

Today ISTE Standards list digital citizenship as one of aspects, which all members of a school district should support. Today digital technology is growing at a fast rate not only in schools but also in society as a whole. Mike Ribble and his college Gerald Bailey wrote a book called "Digital Citizenship in schools." The book defines 9 key elements on how use technology in school, home and within the community. Among the 9 elements are 3 categories: Respect, Educate and Protect. Respect covers using technology correctly and not stealing others property. Educate covers helping users communicate to each other properly and to use literacy correctly as well as buying items online correctly. Protect covers educating others to know their privacy rights. Mike hopes to have these 9 elements created into a curriculum so teachers can use technology at various levels. Mike wants to make sure that educators make sure to help students understand the issues they may encounter online while also showing the positive impact technology can have.

Andrew Marcinek Director of Technology and EducatorU.org Co-founder, Boston, MA An acceptable use policy is a document that is present in every school district around the country. The purpose of this policy is to provide safe parameters for exploring digital resources and using school-issued devices properly. The article talks about the importance of developing internet use guidelines that students can understand by avoiding overly complicated words that may confuse or intimidate students. These guidelines should focus on how students should use the technology rather than focusing on what they should not be doing. The article also focuses on the importance of involving parents and helping them understand how their children should be using technology. Furthermore, the article mentions the importance of being aware of the new apps and their implications in the lives of students. This allows school districts to stay one step ahead and decide whether or not they want students to have access to these apps.

This article is helpful to our class because it establishes how important technology integration into our classroom is, and that in order to do so we teachers must be trained professionally. This improves our quality as educators.