Digital Citizenship

I feel like this is one of the most important concepts for today's K-12 CIOs, so I'll spend a minute on digital citizenship.

K-12 CIOs are placed in a unique situation as it concerns technology adoption. There is a flood of information and resources available, free of charge in many cases, that can be used to completely revolutionize the educational experience and engage young learners and teachers in ways never before thought possible. Any technology conference will feature these tools and resources and examples of their successful use. As technology leaders in an instructional environment, we have a responsibility to be knowledgeable about what's out there and look for ways to see these tools effectively integrated into instruction.

K-12 CIOs are also district administrators. Superintendents and other leaders assume that you and your office are keeping the district legal and "out of trouble" as it pertains to technology use. They assume that you're legally licensing products and that you have a service plan in place for failure of critical components. In addition, many assume that you're the resident guru on all things technology. If there's a new web resource available, it's probably assumed that you know all about it. In our own circle, we know that this isn't realistic. It isn't realistic to expect that you can block every sexually explicit web site and it isn't realistic that you're able to prevent all inappropriate behavior with technology throughout the district from a single cubicle or office. However, these are all assumptions that others often make.

So this is the dilemma. We don't feel like we're doing service to our teachers and students if we don't encourage the use of some wonderful technology tools. At the same time, we wonder if we're doing proper service to our administrators if we're not properly informing them of any risks the district may be incurring by the use of some of these same tools.

There's no easy answer, but teaching concepts like the nine elements of digital citizenship is a key component. The quick definition supplied on that page is that digital citizenship is "the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regards to technology use." I won't spell out the nine elements here, but they're in the link and well worth your time.

The next question might be "where can I get information that will help me educate users?" This same site has some good tools and resources. I really like the lesson plans and activities at the bottom of this page. Also, the ISTE publication of "Digital Citizenship in Schools" and other articles and books can be found here.

I suspect we'll all hear more about it and, as technology leaders, you'll be expected to lead the charge to educate others about appropriate use of technology.