Before you spout an opinion...Realities of Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship breaks down into two components – producing and consuming. The teacher is the intellectual dietitian guiding both sides of these processes.

People participate more fully in digital communication than ever before: Our President tweets outside the traditional controls of press, Instagram provides a transient “ish” connection between people, Facebook is a vehicle of personal expression and communication to the world, blogs give rise to published works of voices not fettered by the privilege of acceptance or costs of print and distribution. People in general are PRODUCING content more than ever before. People – including our students are participating in the process of creating things that others consume. With that production, comes a responsibility and a set of ethics not always addressed in our instructional standards. People all over the globe are producing clips and bits and bytes of data that have become a part of the global intellectual diet. The teacher is now a digital dietitian, seeking ways to help students participate in ways that allow them to properly digest to utilize or discard what they consume. The next course for the teacher becomes a lesson in how students can then take that distillation of content to transform it into messages that are ethical, accurate, and responsible – yet at the same time, preserve the student’s response/reaction and “take” on the subject.

In learning to consume, students have to learn about the propaganda and mistruths (alternate facts) that are poisonous and unproductive for themselves, their communities, and the society at large. In today’s society, we don’t often have the change to choose what media we consume. We are assaulted by it. Instead, we must critically evaluate all of it and make a decision about veracity, author’s purpose and message, potential logical fallacies, as well as the application of and consequences to those messages.

In addition, producing is no longer a matter of putting your opinion or ideas out there. What you say has consequences beyond your desire to spout an opinion. Clarity in explaining your response to the ideas is critical in delivering the message others will consume. The message must be produced in such a way that is more than just truth but becomes part of a greater solution – a way of moving the community and society forward.

Digital citizenship involves a recursive – iterative – process. One cannot merely consume information – it must be sorted and digested. Part of that process involves considering what must be cast away or unused. And – as citizenship implies a relationship – consuming is only one side. The process requires a response – producing content. The responsibility in producing new content is in understanding that your message will be consumed. Will be read. Positive digital citizenship requires an attention to your role in being part of the solution or contributing to the problems – of which we have enough.