How can we teach students to have online social awareness?

Online social awareness should definitely be taught in schools. At times it seems that people forget that what they write online is permanent but more importantly there are people's feelings at the other end. Students need to be taught to respect other people online as they would do face to face. 


Students need to gain an  understand digital citizenship through learnt and practised behaviours and using a model such as  Lindsay and Davis’ (2012) model called ‘Enlightened Digital Citizenship’ (Chapter 5). This begins with access to technology, and includes five underlying areas of awareness as a lens for viewing digital citizenship choices:

• technical awareness
• individual awareness
• social awareness
• cultural awareness
• global awareness
  

All five areas of awareness are important as they allow us to filter and interpret circumstances and determine appropriate behavior in different situations.

• The five areas of awareness are complemented by the four ‘Rays’ of understanding, namely:

• safety, privacy, copyright, fair use and legal compliance
• etiquette and respect
• habits of learning: responsible, reliable management of online activity
• literacy and fluency

Etiquette and respect online should be at the forefront of teaching our students to be acceptable digital citizens.

 

Reference:

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2012). Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: Move to global collaboration one step at a time. New York: Allyn and Bacon.