Digital citizenship or digital responsibility?

In "Why I Hate Digital Citizenship" Edutopia, 10/26/14, Ozzie HS teacher Keith Heggart writes:

... I can't bear the term digital citizenship. I don't think that's what we're teaching in the vast majority of these blog posts. Instead, I think we're teaching digital responsibility. We're teaching kids how to stay safe and be sensible - and that's not citizenship. ...

It's kind of like teaching children to cross the road safely, and then claiming that's teaching citizenship. Citizenship is how to participate - safely, yes, but also meaningfully and thoughtfully - in civil society, in political, social and other spheres. There's a lot more to it than responsibilities.

Point taken, Keith. But I will argue that "citizenship" is still a relevant term and that teaching Internet safety does not go far enough - we should be teaching a broader category - ethical behaviors.

In Developing an Ethical Compass for Worlds of Learning (Identtified by MERLOT as a distinguished, high-quality source of learning material), MultiMedia Schools, Nov/Dec 1998, I wrote:

In direct or indirect ways, children begin to learn ethical values from birth. And while families and the church are assigned the primary responsibility for a child’s ethical education, schools have traditionally had the societal charge to teach and reinforce some moral values, especially those directly related to citizenship and school behaviors. Most of the ethical issues that surround technology deal with societal and school behaviors and are an appropriate and necessary part of the school curriculum.

Perhaps there was an earlier mention of technology ethics being considered as a part of "citizenship," but I'd like somebody to show me where. While I may not have popularized the term, I may have accidently invented it. Given the squeamishness that school leaders often have teaching "values," I'd argue that citizenship gets as close to the kind of behavior we want to address as possible.

In the article cited above (and expanded in my book Learning Right From Wrong in the Digital Age) I organized safe and ethical behavior as:

Johnson’s 3 P’s of Technology Ethics:

 Privacy - I will protect my privacy and respect the privacy of others.

 Property - I will protect my property and respect the property of others.

a(P)propriate Use - I will use technology in constructive ways and in ways which do not break the rules of my family, church, school, or government.

Note that how one treats others is ethics; how one deals with the unethical actions of others is safety. Two sides to the same coin - and both need to be addressed - seriously.

Call it citizenship, safety, ethics, values, or your own term, but help kids learn it, everytime they go online.

Comments

[April]

There's an upcoming EdWeb webinar on Rebranding Digital Citizenship: http://www.instantpresenter.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=ED55DE898947