Digital Citizenship

Have you ever watched children choosing books at a library or bookstore? Most kids do not pick books based on title, author, or jacket description the way adults do. Instead, they spend time exploring each book, skimming through pages and looking at pictures. What are they looking for? A book that explores a subject the child is excited about at that moment. It could be butterflies or baseball, buildings or ballet.

Where can you look to get that kind of variety for kids to explore? One idea is Epic!, the digital reading resource that focuses on reader-driven, instantly accessible reading choices. It’s a free resource for teachers and school librarians and offers more than 20,000 titles for kids under 12. As parent you can harness the power to offer a large variety of books on a wide variety of topics to your kids for $4.99 per month.

If you are not familiar with the site Tech with Kids, you may find it to be a great source of balanced reviews of media for children from experts in the field. Recently the site updated some of their recommendation lists with a focus on diversity, including Apps That Celebrate Our Differences, Kid Apps Showing Diversity, and Girl Power in Apps. Also new on the site is a list of Book Apps for Older Readers. This list contains 10 great book apps for kids ages 7-14. 



Despite evidence that students who have taken standardized exams on the computer tend to score worse than those who took the tests on paper, educational groups are pushing schools to do assessments online. There are definite advantages, such as quicker feedback on performance, the ability to cater to different kinds of learners through a variety media formats, and a faster assessment of data to help with and remediate student performance. What do parents need to know about getting kids ready to take tests online? Studies have shown that kids perform better when they have access to technology in and out of school, are required to use it for school assignments, and use technology in more powerful ways – including writing, manipulating data, creating projects and knowing how to type. Make sure your kids are using the computer for more than playing games, know how to use the basic functions of a word processor even at a third grade level, and start learning how to type when it is appropriate.

Students who come to school sleepy may be tired because they wake up during the night to check social media, according to a recent study by British researchers which looked at data for more than 900 young people between ages 12 and 15. Data shows 1 in 5 students reported waking up to check social media. The National Sleep Foundation suggests that teens get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep per night. Making sure that a regular sleep pattern is kept is extremely important so that teens can maintain their internal clock and function optimally.

What side of the digital divide is your school on? Is it on the side where parents and teachers are asking to keep computer time to a minimum because students have plenty of digital time at home with their own devices? Or are you on the other side -  the kind of school where teachers and administrators are literally going dumpster diving to help kids get the equipment they desperately need to learn tech skills for the global economy they will be facing? Take a look at this article entitled Not All Towns are Created Equal, Digitally to learn more about the challenges a town like Greeley Colorado faces when sitting on the lower tier of the digital divide.

While you have probably read numerous articles about the dangers of parents “oversharing” online when it comes to their children, it always seems to bear repeating that privacy is a fleeting thing at best.  For example, while you may feel safe knowing Facebook has some privacy protections, did you know that when you post something, including your children’s pictures, you grant them the license to use and display that content? As the author of the article Do Our Children Want To Be On Social Media? reminds us, “kids are taught at school never to reveal personal information such as their birthday, their address, their school, or the names of their friends or pets. Meanwhile parents may be posting photographs of beaming pigtailed children in school logo tee shirts, standing outside their own numbered front doors. Scroll down a bit to find their friends’ pictures name identified at a party, and throw in the family dog, and you have everything you ever need to hack their future email and banking passwords, never mind anything more sinister.”

Often parents are asked to think about how they can be better models of media use for kids but many question what they can do. Why not try logging your media use for a week just to see when and how you use digital media, how often and for how long? Ask kids to do the same… it could lead to a very interesting discussion.

From magazines to Instagram, there seems to be a constant stream of images of perfect-looking men and women that fill our everyday lives. How can you prepare your kids to understand that these unrealistic faces and bodies are “touched up” so they don’t feel inadequate in comparison? An article on the Common Sense Media site entitled The Ugly Truth Behind Pretty Pictures discusses 6 different ways to approach the subject with your kids. One suggested idea is playing “spot the Photoshop” where you challenge your kids to spot the retouching on any ads or photos you come across. Or, let your kids use a free photo editor on your phone or computer to edit some pictures of themselves or you. It is pretty easy to make someone look better or worse very easily… just make sure to keep your sense of humor!

As we confront the idea of misinformation creeping into our lives, especially from digital sources, many argue that we need redefine literacy for the digital age. Are we going to become people who “only watch and listen – a characteristic reminiscent of medieval times?” The idea that a source is only valid if written or printed is disappearing, and many people feel that seeing or hearing something gives it uncontestable value. A great example of this is the use of mobile devices to capture instances to share with the world rather than putting it in words or giving context to a visual. This is also creating a generation gap between kids and parents and students and teachers.

As Ruth Reynard puts it in her article entitled Redefining Literacy in the Digital Age “What is becoming clear is that increasing numbers of students do not have the skills required to understand conventional information sources and media, and older generations of people do not understand newer informational environments or exchanges. So, when folks are encouraged to "read" websites, that is not happening by individuals on either side of that gap.”

According to a Slate.com article by Alexander Burgoyne and David Hambrick, human brains are wired to retain only the gist of information consumed, creating difficulty in remembering the source of news and whether it is flagged as fake or not. Exposure to fake news could even lead us to “remember” things that never happened. Other research has shown that people are vulnerable to false memories even when they are explicitly warned that they may be exposed to misinformation.  This might undermine efforts by Facebook and others to curb false news on social media, a problem particularly prevalent during the presidential election and certainly something you might want to talk with your children about as part of your ongoing discussion of digital literacy and citizenship.