More Things #11 Becoming a Digital Citizen

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http://www.nettysworld.com.au/
An Australian government web site aimed at teaching Digital Citizenship to very young children:

Thoughts for kids while researching on the internet:
1.SEARCH, VALIDATE SOURCES, DIG DEEPER - the first thing you find is not always pertinent, best, or valid. Google is not the be-all and end-all of valuable sources.
Begin to teach kids about the deep web of information that is not always found on a surface web search. When I was in college l had to get passwords for different data bases that were licensed by the college and actually check out the different disks! I think this is a bit analogous to the Deep Web. You had to d-i-g!

2.Give students the criteria to evaluate an online resource and have them practice. Make them realize that a library and the internet are places to dive deep for the pearl, not grab the first fake they see.

3.Teach students to take organized notes - even in math class! Teach kids to draw pictures to represent how they understand an idea-this will help them synthesize what they have read from various sources. I truly believe that if you can't draw the concept you don't understand the concept internally. Questioning, shifting, sorting, and pulling ideas into a cohesive picture is very connected to verifying sources and their worth.

4.Teach the kids, after reading a multitude of sources, to say to themselves, "What do I think?"

5.I love the Digital Citizenship blog that lists The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship. The internet is a REAL world so real-world behavior must be followed. There are laws that must be followed. There is etiquette that must be followed. There are safety and health rules that must be followed. I think students have a tendency to think the internet is not a "real" world. If a student has never been to a live performance or play before, they must be taught that it is not TV or video and that there are live performers on the stage that must be acknowledged, behaviorally, in the proper way. In the same way, students must be taught that the internet is also "alive" in that actions with hardware and on the internet stage can and do have real-world consequences.


Sources: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-should-be-done-about-digital.html
Deep Web thoughts: http://theconnectedclassroom.wikispaces.com/SearchStrategies
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/08/take-kids-deep-inside-where-deep-web.html
http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html