Global Digital Citizen Post #1

As someone who is relatively active in the e-world, it's hard to not notice the safety and ethical issues that seem to come with using the Internet. There's a multitude of issues out there, from cyberbullying to Internet piracy, and with the digital world constantly expanding, there are more watchful eyes monitoring cyberspace activity. Growing up, I always thought of the World Wide Web as a tool for connecting, for networking, and in a lot of cases, to just learn more. Some people, on the other hand, use it as a weapon and because of those users, the Internet is considered dangerous by many. I suppose that's understandable, as anyone can find anything on the web if they know what they're looking for, and that's the scary part about it, I think. The exposure.

Knowing this, it's important to keep in mind that there's definitely an unsafe side to digital information and technology and that it's important to teach children how to utilize these tools safely, especially as future educators. Generally speaking, I'd say that the phrase, "Treat others the way you'd like to be treated," could absolutely be carried over from real life to e-life. You wouldn't want something to torment you, so don't do it online. Taking what isn't yours without permission is just as bad online as it is in real life. The biggest thing, in my opinion, is stranger danger; we hear a lot about talking to strangers in real life but the problem is even larger online. With the ability to create new identities, hide old ones or even be a completely different person, the mask of online anonymity allows anyone - strangers - to be anyone else. Several years ago, I watched a film on this topic and while it's not a documentary, I still think that it demonstrates a rather realistic scenario in regards to online predators. For anyone interested, here's the trailer.

There are several films along the same lines as Trust, though some of them expand into other territories, like online bullying. In 2010, a documentary called Catfish was released to document Nev Schulman's journey to meet who he thought was the ideal girl - one that he had met online. Since then, Schulman's documentary influenced the creation of a spin-off television show of the same name to document the journeys of people and those people meeting their online friends in real life. Spoiler alert: it nearly always goes wrong.

As a classroom teacher, it's not only important to model how to use digital media and how to avoid unsafe situations but also to teach children to not be on the other side of it, to not initiate inappropriate online behavior. I've always said that I wanted to teach younger students because they're rather influential when they're so young and because of that, I like the idea of inspiring kids. That being said, it's important to utilize digital media and technology safely and while bad online experiences won't happen in my classroom, it's still important to teach students what is bad and why, as it should be with anything, really. It's hard to avoid the issues and regulations that come with online activity, but that doesn't mean that we still shouldn't model appropriate behavior. If anything, it's initiative to stress the importance of distinguishing what is right and what is wrong, especially online.