Digiteen speaks with Mike Ribble, author of 'Digital Citizenship'

[Julie Lindsay]

Teachers and students of the current 'Digiteen' project as well as other international participants had the opportunity to speak with Mike Ribble via a virtual classroom linkup in Elluminate recently. Mike is author of 'Digital Citizenship in Schools' and 'Raising a Digital Child.'
The conversation talked about the evolution of 'digital citizenship' as a concept and how it is still not a widely used term. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) now include 'digital citizenship' as one of the six NETS.S (student) standards for 21st Century learning using technology. We also talked about how Mike created the nine elements of digital citizenship, that now form the basis of the Digiteen project.

I found it interesting to hear some students mention they felt alienated from the nine elements and I couldn't help wondering if as adults we are 'over-theorizing' something that comes naturally to the digital learner. However, the educator and parent in me knows that digital fluency does not always equate with knowing how to be a reliable and responsible as well as safe digital citizen.

Listen to a recording of the 60 min. online conversation and tell me what you think about this.