Cyber Civics: Preparing students for global digital citizenship
What are your real-life communities? What does it mean to be a citizen of a community? What principles can you employ to be a positive citizen of any community to which you belong?
These are the questions brought to the 6th graders as they navigate the most recent portion of their first year of the Cyber Civics curriculum, which is based around the theme of Digital Citizenship. Before diving into all that it can mean to be a digital citizen, we are exploring themes of ‘community’ and what it looks like to be a member, or citizen, of various communities, both in real life and online.
The students brainstormed lists of all of the communities to which they belong, from the first and sometimes smallest community many of us know, one’s family, to the 6th grade class, to the Cedarwood student body, to the broader Cedarwood community. We explored the idea that we belong to communities within our neighborhoods, towns, cities, countries, and the world. Students offered their varied communities to which others in the class may or may not also belong, such as sports teams, choirs, dance academies, volunteer organizations, summer camps, hobby groups, and religious congregations. Some students realized that they are actually members of a dozen communities or more!
We then discussed the difference between simply being a person in a community, and acting as a truly positive citizen within this environment. To do so, we explored the five principles of citizenship, as defined by the Cyber Civics curriculum:
Honesty
Respect
Responsibility
Compassion
Courage
The highlight of this work was when students paired up to create posters displaying these five principles as applied to one of their own communities. As an educator, this is one of my favorite projects we do in Cyber Civics! Students explored:
How to be honest in their family: When you break someone’s toy and you admit you broke it, that shows honesty
How to show respect when fencing: Take off your helmet when you’re doing the fencing salute
How to be responsible in the full Cedarwood community: Be a good example to kids younger than you
How to show compassion on the baseball field: If a player gets injured, see if they’re okay
How to harness and display courage as a Cedarwood student: Courage is standing up for your friends, and doing the right thing even if your friends are not.
Click to see the gallery of posters
Some students were tempted to offer online communities, such as gaming platforms and social media sites; many others do not yet have any experience with communities found on digital platforms. We talked about how students often already understand and utilize these principles in real-life settings, but may feel more easily tempted to disregard these principles in digital realms. To help everyone see what it looks like to be a positive citizen online, the whole class produced the following examples of how to apply these five principles to a common first online community setting: the infamous group chat with friends. It was not an easy exercise, and the class came up with wonderful examples of each principle in action. We also had a robust discussion of potential consequences when a principle is disregarded.
5 Principles of Participating in a Group Chat with Friends
Honesty: Use truthful words in anything you type.
Compassion: Stand up for others with your words. When others express that they are having a bad time, be there for them.
Respect: Let others say what they want to say. Practice active reading.
Responsibility: Take ownership of your part in conversations, past and present.
Courage: Tell others when they hurt your feelings.
Potential Consequences of Not Utilizing Responsibility:
You might say or send something inappropriate.
You could get kicked off the chat by a friend or admin.
Your friends may feel neglected or disrespected.
You may gain a bad reputation and not be invited to future chats.
We will continue to work with these principles throughout the year, and the themes of positive and negative online activity come up in all three years of the Cyber Civics curriculum. There is power and privilege inherent to online participation. Through digital platforms, we are enabled to connect with people from all over the world, allowing us all to become truly global citizens. It is an honor and a joy to guide our students through this program each year - I cannot wait to see what this class gains through our work together!
Written by Claire Harrison