What is Digital Citizenship: A Rambling Look at My Personal Definition

In which I ramble my way through my own definition of digital citizenship for ED 654. Quick and dirty, I resisted urges to make it flashy or alter it in any way — except I did closed caption it for accessibility because that’s what a good (and aware) digital citizen does — or should strive to do.

6 Replies to “What is Digital Citizenship: A Rambling Look at My Personal Definition”

  1. Pingback: Wing It: Keep It Going – D'Arcy L. Hutchings, MLIS, Future M.Ed.

  2. The idea of “digital storytelling” is, of course, an interesting parallel when it comes to the usefulness (or not) of the prefix. For some reason, the difference in the potential product of digital storytelling makes the prefix less troublesome there (for me) than with DC. In both cases, I’m not *quite* ready to throw out the prefix completely…I just see where new media, for example, allows for a type of storytelling different to a much greater degree than its traditional counterparts than anything I can find in digital citizenship. The roots of storytelling remain the same, but stories told through videogames seem qualitatively distinct in enough ways from print stories to at least make the prefix less troublesome.

  3. Love the video! And that you held back from altering it. I know that was probably difficult to do!

    I agree that putting the word digital in front of citizenship doesn’t really change the basic definition. Morals and ethics “should” carry over into all aspects of our lives, including online. But, the very essence of being “online” or “digital” is a different beast than “real life.” Especially when you can have anonymity. Do you think that all the rules should be the same for both online and off? And I am happy you brought up safety. That is a very real thing, with identity theft, online predators, phishing and hackers in general. I have actually experience identity theft. I was in the hospital undergoing surgery for cancer when someone was able to get my personal information off of the internet somehow (actually, there was a huge security breach with the VA and we think that is where the person got my information) and this person took out online loans in my name. Up until that point, I naively believed that my information was “safe.” Thus, I think online safety needs to have a place within digital citizenship. What do you think?

    • Yikes! I am sorry to hear of your identity theft experience. The internet makes many things easier, including bad things.

      I do think that the rules are essentially the same online and off. Don’t talk to strangers can be carried over to not meeting people from online. Don’t share your personal information like address, phone number, etc. is relevant online and offline. Treat others as you would like to be treated applies everywhere. This is not to say that there shouldn’t be some education on how that looks online, but why is this a separate subject entirely? This should be built in to the curriculum where relevant.

      Also, there is much more to “digital citizenship” then the rules for safety!

      • I completely agree with you. And ironically, if you look at my exploration, you’ll see that here in Australia, digital citizenship is already part of the curriculum. And yes, I see what you mean about it not being a separate subject. The more I look at it, the more it is the same all the way around…that we don’t need the tag “digital” tossed in. And yes, there are definitely more rules than just safety…however, I feel especially when talking about children, that it is a major aspect that needs to be highlighted.

  4. I agree with you about the word digital not magically changing the definition of the word citizenship.

    Do you think safety gets put into digital citizenship because there really isn’t anywhere else convenient to stick it — lesson/class wise? Most of what I’ve seen about digital citizenship seems to be aimed at students, or teachers to instruct students with.

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