Where is your citizenship?

This chapter in Brooks-Young talked about our digital citizenship which basically deals with the fact that we are part of a bigger community when we put information online we become part of a global network, wether we want to or not.  So it talks about some of the issues that have come up with this digital citizenship.  One thing they talked about in great detail is your privacy, the fact that unless you take precautions you never know who is going to be looking at the things that you post online.  They also talked about how once something is on the internet you can never really get rid of it, it always exists out there in some form, and so it has this way of letting the past come back to haunt you.  This chapter seemed to focus on how it is the responsibility of adults to model to students an ethical and responsible approach to using the internet, but often times the adults are just as bad as students.  We forget that even though the internet allows us to keep in touch with people who are far away it also allows other people to learn about us, such as potential employers and they will make a judgement about you based on what they see online.  This chapter also talked about copyright information and how it is important for us a digital citizen to use the information we have in a responsible and ethical way.  We need to remind ourselves and our students that everything out on the internet isn't for our taking and we need to respect the rights of others online.

As far as the issue of sexting goes I think it is important for teachers and parents alike to model and talk about responsible ways to use technology.  I think often times people forget about the potential consequences of their actions and then they ending up getting themselves in a big mess.  Trying to be proactive is the ideal approach to a situation like this, but I think if you face this issue in your school you'll have use judgement and time to come to the appropriate and best solution.  I am not sure what I think the appropriate solution is, but I think often times that charging someone with a felony over this may be a little much especially if they are younger students who have their whole lives in front of them.  This is definitely a touchy issue and is one that is growing, but until I am faced with a situation where I have to deal with it I'm not sure I could tell you what the best course of action is.