We have talked about using technology for students and teachers; however, I believe that a big part of all this is the parents or guardians of the students.  I think it is highly important that the parents are involved with teaching the students the proper usage of technology at home.  There is so much pressure on the teachers to make the student a productive person, a smart individual, and a proper citizen.  However, there should be more emphasis placed on parenting, and when it comes to teaching and learning technology, it shouldn't be any different.  What ideas do you have for including parents or guardians in the development of technology in the students?

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/advice-for-parents/rules-road-parents-digital-age

In the “how-to” article above simple guidelines are outlined for parents. Most of the rules have been adapted from the rules used in off-line parenting. I personally like the instructions under number 8, 9 and 10. The more I do research about the information available online I notice that people tend to gravitate towards the interests which they have in their everyday life (thus somewhat ignoring the diversity that the network has to offer).

After reading comments from other classmates I have to disagree with Angel somewhat. She mentioned that she is worried every time her adolescent son wants to play games online with his friends. A similar argument was most likely made 60 years ago in regards to teenagers driving cars. There comes a point where you have to let someone experience something and hopefully invites you to come along and learn something with him/her. When people worry before fully experiencing something it averts them from trying that activity in the future.

In the particular case of online citizenship, online experiences and gaming; I do not believe they will take the place of real person to person interaction. I would suspect that they will serve as an intermediary in order to meet people in real situations. Below is an interesting talk about videogames and their effect on the brain. http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html?quote=1964

In the end I have to admit that younger generations are well ahead of us in regards to digital citizenship. More likely than not we should learn from them about the digital, and they from us in regards to real world. In the end since they are young they are able to recover much faster from their bad experiences than older generations are.



I liked Brittanee’s article; most definitely a good outline of behavior. I would like to hear more about what kind of specific actions could be recommended to digital citizen to make their lives easier to navigate and how to tear down some of the myths related to use of technology and digital citizenship.