iPad, iPhone, iMac, iCitizen
Curran’s (2012) iCitizen Project asked high school and college students to analyze cyberbullying and give the definition of citizenship a modern upgrade that reflects the digital 21st century that we live in today. Inspired by a tragic suicide, the goal of the project was to end cyberbullying by teaching students about digital citizenship. Students worked collaboratively through social media and went beyond the classroom walls to change digital citizenship and lives.
The students involved in the project reached the conclusion, according to Curran (2012), that iCitizens are “aware, empathetic, and socially responsible; they believe in social justice and model socially responsibility both face–to-face and virtually” (p. 8). The definition takes into account a national, global, and digital perspective and focuses on the importance of being active and humanizing those on the other end of the screen. Individual students then went on the define iCitizen further. Curran (2012) shared student definitions of iCitizens for individual components, and then states that a student named Bryan claimed “an iCitizen is someone who is a citizen of the world…[and] sees every person as a human first” (p. 10). I agree with each facet of these definitions. It is crucial for iCitizens, digital citizens, to be responsible, aware, and fair. They need to be citizens of the world, not just their immediate environment.
The iCitizen Project reached several valuable conclusions. Curran (2012) concludes that empathy, a component of being a digital citizen, needs to be modeled and explicitly taught early and often. As a fourth grade teacher, I have seen students struggle with empathy. They have a hard time putting themselves in someone else’s shoes because the age group is generally egocentric. They think they are being funny when they are actually hurting feelings, and this lack of empathy can be seen both offline and online. If we tackle the concept of empathy early and often, our little humans will continue to be better people. The iCitizen Project also concluded that students in kindergarten through twelfth grade should be participating in digital citizenship as it is imperative for learning in the 21st century. It’s no secret that technology use in schools is continuing to develop and expand. Students need to be assisted is using that technology appropriately and respectfully.
The iCitizen Project, overall, declared that students should exemplify digital citizenship to succeed in the 21st century and that student-centered approaches in which students are active learners and take ownership of their responsibilities is how to achieve it.
References
Curran, M. (2012, June). iCitizen: Are you a socially responsible digital citizen. Paper
presented at the International Society for Technology Education Annual
Conference, San Antonio, TX.
