Think Like a Teacher

We are social beings, so why not use that to frame digital citizenship in the context of community?

This time of year, teachers are establishing the ground rules for their classrooms: what is expected, how students should behave during activities and transitions, and even what kind of language we use to interact. This is when we establish the standards for our classroom community. We tell, they listen — and we hope they do it.

I have noticed different kinds of communities lately and how each has a set of community standards
that develops and is shared with new members. One  such community is Facebook. Each member chooses the boundaries of our Facebook community by connecting to certain friends and adjusting settings for what shows in our newsfeed. Two of my own friends have recently cut others out of their feed (or blocked or unfriended them) because the offending “friend” did not adhere to unstated community standards. One complained about racist remarks a “friend” had shared (bye, bye!) while another bristled at a “friend’s” annoying political campaigning (see you after November!). As adults, we know that we both infer and establish community standards wherever we participate.

But back to our classrooms… Shouldn’t we be talking with our kids about community awareness and how to develop the skills to both read inferences of a community and to guide that community by our contributions? In elementary grades, typical social studies curriculum includes the concept of community in the very concrete sense: the place with a fire house, shops and roads, a town hall, a police department, local government, and our school, of course. Separately we teach about staying safe online, avoiding cyberbullying, and perhaps how to write comments on a blog or compose an email. Instead of treating digital citizenship as a separate entity, we need to help our students see the online world as just another community (or collection of communities) they belong to. They need to read the unstated rules of any community they enter, whether it is a workplace, a classroom, or an online social network.

Last week, I had the pleasure of working with students from across the U.S. in the pilot Boot Camp for MySciLife. This small group of students and teachers came from six different schools with six very different student bodies, six sets of school rules and policies, and surrounded by six varied, real communities. But in MySciLife, we formed a new virtual community. As the community grew rapidly (over 800 posts in 5 days!), students developed de facto community standards of behavior. Yes, we teachers nudged them a bit on digital citizenship in citing images, but they did what kids do. They watched the way their peers spoke (or wrote) and adjusted their language and the thoughtfulness of their posts accordingly.

Before we add yet another mandated chunk to K-12 curriculum, teaching digital citizenship, we should look at how easily this concept fits into our social nature and take advantage of that social impulse. Talk about how we figure out a group. Talk about the role of “citizen” in real and virtual communities. Talk about how the choices we make by voting, friending, commenting, and participating. Communities flow continually between real and virtual today. Citizenship is one extended discussion and lesson, not  separate curricula in technology or social studies. And we all teach it every day.