Responsible Digital Citizenship

Dr. Rennie Reddekopp, our class guest speaker this week raised interesting issues many of us don't realize while we are using digital technology. We live our lives surrounded by electronic equipment and we can no longer get by without it. However, we don’t usually think about the consequences of its production and use or our model of consumption. And when we do, we are often unaware of the full complexity of the reality. Personally I have never thought about the material in my devices and where those materials come from. Most of us throw out our smartphones on average after just 20 months to buy another one  although their useful life is 10 years. These items become electronic waste, or e-waste. I have never thought about the effects of toxic substances found in e-waste products on our health and the Environment. 

The effects on people may be direct, where they affect people who work processing these materials without sufficient protection, or indirect, whereby the pollutants enter the water and earth and affect the population at large through the food chain. Children are at the highest risk of absorbing dangerous chemicals and for that reason, in 2013, the WHO issued the “Geneva Convention on E-waste and Children’s Health”.The pollution from these dangerous residues can spread a great distance, as far as dozens of kilometres from the original deposit, via bioaccumulation and atmospheric transport. Our electronic devices don’t just raise an ethical dilemma; they also pose serious problems for our environment at all stages of their life cycle, and risk our  health.The mining of raw materials for electronic products—including silicon, aluminum, copper, lead, and gold—contributes to increased respiratory problems for workers, such as silicosis, tuberculosis, bronchitis, and lung cancer.

 When we are using using digital world we should take all such things in to consideration and utilize it in responsible ways. I thinks this is what responsible digital citizenship about. Last year I remember Professor Nantais asked us what it means by being a citizen of particular state? My response was having both right and responsibilities. Yes being a citizen of a particular  state  carries both right and responsibilities.In digital citizenship, this general framework still applies. However there are also some differences. Digital citizenship has its own set of nuanced rules that relate to citizenship, rules that are peculiar to the digital context. At some level, digital citizenship requires careful consideration.Digital citizenship is the ability to use technology in safe and appropriate ways. With the ubiquity of technology, students need to know how to responsibly participate in online environments.

                we are digital Citizen 

 How can we make our student good digital Citizen?

All students need digital citizenship skills to participate fully in their communities and make smart choices online and in life. Hence what is expected from us is empowering our students by focusing on good behavior such as being kind, respectful and empathy online and offline.

• guide them, be there to respond to any issues they have

• allow them to deal with some issues by themselves

• Be there at the beginning, supervise them and let them to act independently

• modeling what good behavior look likes by being good digital citizen

If we  give them chances, provide them access, and show them the direction of what it looks like  to be responsible for the use of digital technology our students even at lower grade levels can be not only a good digital citizen but can change the world.  Olivia Van Ledtie one of the inspiring kids who are doing a wonderful job in digital world 

https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates