How to be a Digital Citizen?

       The word citizenship means the quality of an individual’s response to membership in community. Everyone knows his responsibilities and his rights and the relationship between people is based on respecting each other. The same idea when discussing digital citizenship. Digital citizen ship is the quality of a response to membership in a digital community. It puts a frame for the communication between students and teachers and between students themselves while using digital classrooms. Actually, to be a digital citizen, we need to think about all of these things: I’m inclusive, I’m informed, I’m engaged, I’m balanced and I’m alert.

-I’m inclusive means that the students in an online classroom are engaged with others online with respect and empathy. This can be shown by taking into consideration the ethics related to the digital community, listening to each other, commenting on each other and giving positive feedback and respecting other’s opinion.

-I’m informed means to evaluate the accuracy, perspective and validity of online information. For example, if the teacher wants to share the students with any information related to the course, she/he must not just simply go to any website, copy the information and share it without making sure whether the information is correct or accurate. And because lots of people are using the social media, sharing information that may be not correct or accurate, the responsibility of a digital citizen is to stop sharing or spreading information that is not correct.

-I’m engaged means that students should be involved while using technology for civic engagement and to be a force for good. They can use technology to attend online courses, to join online groups in order to spread awareness and share thoughts and experiences.

-I’m balanced means that students and teachers should balance working online and social life -working offline. They should put a schedule to manage their time. Such a plan should include online activities and offline activities such as physical activity social life.

-I’m alert means that they should know how to be safe online and offline and so the environment that the teacher is providing should be safe. Students should protect their private information from hackers and spam. Also, they should respect each other and away from bullying.

       As a conclusion, the digital citizen has responsibilities and so in order to be a digital citizen, one must think of being inclusive, informed, engaged, balanced and alert. So that, he/she can have the ability to create, share and collaborate online, to stay safe online and protect privacy, to stand up to cyber bullying and communicate respectfully. Always remember that a digital citizen must have a digital footprint!