By

Maryam Abdulkareem


Computers in education W531
Joanna Ray
July 2014

Digital Citizenship
An Action plan for Educators

Digital Citizenship
To adult educators, digital citizenship means, The quality of habits, actions, and consumption
patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities (Heick, 2013). Digital
Citizenship prepares students, technology users, and educators for a society full of technology by
helping teachers, technology leaders, and parents to understand what
students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately (Ribble, 2014).
As such, the educator has an essential role to play with digital literacy where he establishes
which technologies to teach and how technology should be used (Burns, 2010). Digital
citizenship has issues with higher education and hence, failure to teach digital citizenship skills
in K-12 will preclude young adult and adult learners the maximum benefits of technology use,
demean human connection and communication, and expose them to technology misuse that
promotes irresponsible behavior and contributes to academic failure (Clifford, 2010).

The need to promote the rules that define appropriate and responsible technology use in
academic field necessitated the promotion of digital citizenship in our curriculum and classroom
through a defined action plan. The target audience for this action plan includes parents, students,
staff, school board, technology professionals, and all technology users. Specifically, the action
plan targets all students in or past level K-12. The action plan relies on an existing definition and
constructed definitions to define digital citizenship. In this context, digital citizenship refers to all
effective and morally acceptable methods and behaviors of ensuring that students and technology
users maximize technology use for academic purposes in an appropriate, responsible, and
effective manner. This will help students, educators, and technology users to utilize modern
technology for the intended academic purposes (Bialo & Sivin-Kachala, 1996).

The main challenge to students in or past level K-12 is that they concentrate on using technology
for social purposes like social networking, playing games, downloading music, interacting with
friends, watching explicit material from the internet, and sharing social information with their
peers (Clifford, 2010). The action plan will address this issue by showing the audience how to
use technology effectively and appropriately for academic and beneficial social purposes.

My action plan deserves positive consideration due to its potential to address the stated audience
issues with technology use. Through my action plan, students will spend less time on the internet
and will not over rely on technology to carry out various academic and social mandates. Indeed,
the action plan will seemingly define the maximum time that a student should spend on the
internet and the extent of technology use. This will coerce the audience to utilize the available
technology for academic purposes and sharing relevant social information. The action plan will
equally limit the students exposure to cyber bullying (Korbey, 2013), explicit material, and
sharing their confidential and private information to strangers. Moreover, the action plan will
specify the responsibility of the parents, educators, and the students on technology use by the
students in or past level K-12 (Korbey, 2013). As such, the action plan will entirely promote the
effective and appropriate use of technology among students by addressing the stated issue.

The following objectives will define the support for the implementation of my action plan:
1. To encourage the students in or past level K-12 to use limited time on the internet
and reduce their overreliance on the technology
2. To encourage the students to utilize technology for academic and beneficial social
purposes
3. To encourage parents and educators to monitor and inform the students on how to
maximize the modern technology for their academic and social wellness
4. To the reduce the students exposure to cybercrime, explicit material, and sharing
their confidential and private information to strangers
Resources for implementing my action plan include lesson plans, experiments and professional
talks and projector to present the lessons.

Steps for implementing my action plan include:
Include the study on appropriate, effective, and responsible use of technology as a
obligatory unit in the curriculum
Inform parents, staff, students, and educators on the values of this plan
Design and follow the lesson plan on technology use
Provide the required technology materials like computers, networking infrastructure, and
internet cables
Teach the students about trust, respect, and responsibility for new sites and technologies
Provide the relevant rules guiding the effective use of technology that define digital
etiquette in school and at homes to parents, staff, students, and educators
Provide electronic precautions to guarantee safety
Attend computer classes and technological experiments to manifest effective technology
use
Offer professional talks and presentations on technology use
Evaluate the effectiveness of the action plan

















References
Bialo, E, & Sivin-Kachala, J. (1996). The Effectiveness of Technology in Schools: A Summary of
Recent Research. Retrieved from:
http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/editorschoiceb/infopower/slctbialoht
ml
Burns, M. (2010). How to Help Teachers Use Technology in the Classroom. Retrieved from:
http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=1865476
Clifford, S. (2010). Teaching About Web Includes Troublesome Parts. Retrieved from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/education/09cyberkids.html?_r=1&
Heick, T. (2013). The Definition of Digital Citizenship. Retrieved from:
http://www.teachthought.com/technology/the-definition-of-digital-citzenship/
Korbey, H. (2013). Teaching Respect and Responsibility Even to Digital Natives. Retrieved
from: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/teaching-respect-and-responsibility-even-
to-digital-natives/
Ribble, M. (2014). Digital Citizenship- Using Technology Appropriately. Retrieved from:
http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/
Ribble, M. (2014). Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship. Retrieved from:
http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html