Digital Citizenship and more…
Every year we run a series of workshops with our year 11 student to revise and review the acceptable use guidelines.
The guidelines we use are based on ones I developed and shaped by the students and the rest of the school community. Everything in them is up for discussion and review. We believe that there is no point in making a guideline or rule that does not bear scrutiny and discussion. If you can not justify the statement and support/defend the stance then you should not have proposed it in the first place.
So the process we go through examines reach of the different aspects of digital citizenship:
- Respecting yourself
- Protecting yourself
- Respecting others
- Protecting others
- Respecting intellectual property
- Protecting intellectual property
We support the presentation and discussion with some great stimulus material from various sources:
- https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/teachers/ This has great videos and teacher resources for all school age groups
- http://www.netsafe.org.nz
- E-safety: Developing whole-school policies to support effective practice
- http://edorigami.wikispaces.com
The discussions that develop are amazing, often challenging but very worthwhile. Investing the time to explain why you recommend a behavior and discussing the rationale and reality behind it adds transparency, integrity and scrutiny to an area of the school that is often dictatorial and prescriptive. Having the students shape the the policy and review it brings ownership to them as this is their policy and ours. These factors combined with a realistic common sense approach will help to achieve the long term goals of the process – safe, ethical and appropriate users who act appropriately and suitably when confronted with the many challenges the internet and its variety presents.
I would love your comments and suggestions:
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