Teaching Students To Become Digital Citizens

This past semester has been filled with great excitement. Currently, three high school seniors that I have taught, and been their counselor have signed to become college-athletes. Our varsity volleyball team is on their way to the state championship, and the theatre students put on an incredible production of “Hairspray.” Yes, things have been busy this school year, and we still have another six and half months left. But isn’t amazing how fast time flies?

During this semester, my colleagues and I were able to present a class-wide course on digital citizenship. For those who are not aware of digital citizenship, I don’t suggest you Google it. If you do, you’ll get over a million results and all you need is just one answer. To my understanding, digital citizenship is where an individual is capable of communicating virtually, and using that platform professionally, respectfully, and for leisure. I was reviewing the materials that I presented, and going over the notes I had taken, and I was thinking how much social media has evolved in the last 15 or so years. To this day, I now use the following social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Messenger. I don’t know if that’s too much or not enough? I was in high school not too long ago, and all we had was IM messaging, MySpace. Facebook was barely coming out and school officials were very concerned about what we were doing on these internet sites. While social media has changed since 2001, the concerns of many schools have not.

I feel that people hide behind social media, and are losing that constructive way of confrontation. And what is confrontation? To me, confrontation can be positive and practical when speaking to someone. I see so many people now, putting their emotions out there virtually and it can potentially cause them so much pain. In my opinion, the more anger you put out their on social media, the bigger the target you become.

So, the content that I presented to an entire class is based on displaying feelings through social media. I now feel that we as individuals must learn to channel our emotions, and learn to be more positive when posting things on social media. We are not here to attack anyone, and we should not disrespect anyone based on his or her standards.

Some have often asked me how I teach. Some have told me that they wish I were their teacher now, or in another life. I’m not telling you that to boost my ego. Reality-check! There are far better teachers than me, and more knowledgeable than I’ll ever be. Let’s just say I’m passionate about my job, and I work for the youth.


So I invite you to learn more about the concept of digital citizenship, and learn how we can empower ourselves to become better citizens digitally. For those who wondered about how I am as teacher… just press play.


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