Digital Citizenship Project

All the advances in technology especially since the internet has become common place have brought great opportunities (like taking online courses) for communication, education, and business. However, anything that society can use for good, it can also find ways for it to be used for bad. Consequently, that is something parents, educators, and students need to be aware of as we continue to advance on this technology superhighway. The three areas I would like to address concerning digital citizenship are 1) fears about its misuse and overuse, 2) the digital divide, 3) legal and ethical issues in technology. First, looking at technology overuse, to the middle-age parent the amount of time our children spend on technology seems like overload, however, due that they are growing up with technology in real time whether it is or isn’t is open to debate. Roblyer and Doering point out the generation of today are “avid multitaskers using several technologies at the same time while studying or driving” (p.13). Roblyer points out studies have shown that safety of a particular task (driving) can suffer when people work on more than one task at a time (p.13). The internet has made the world available with a click of a mouse, children today have quick access to in-depth knowledge of subjects, ways to express their creativity, and communicate with people all over the world. However, with this freedom comes new misuse of technology such as cyberbulling, sexting, exposure to online predators, and users sometimes revealing to much personal information on-line (www.netsmartz.org/). The second area of I want to examine is the digital divide, Molnar (1978) pointed out technology could further divide society by widening gender gap, socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic lines (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.17). Therefore, how does this affect lower income families? Roblyer and Doering point out the the “single greatest factor determining access to technology is economic status” (p.18). Therefore, is technology access and knowledge for lower-income students dependent on the public school systems? Roblyer and Doering point out that one study (Vigor 2010) has shown that unmonitored computer use by students can lead to decrease academic achievement, leading back to point number one misuse of technology. The Nielsen Norman group point out that there are three parts to the digital divide, economic, usability, and empowerment divide. They point out the economic divide is becoming irrelevant in industrialized countries as cost of computers continue to decrease. Their research shows the biggest concern is usability meaning technology remains too complicated for “low-literacy users,” which is about 40% of the population. The second group affected by usability divide is senior citizens, who internet companies continue to ignore even though “seniors are the main remaining source of growth for internet use.” Lastly, Nielsen Norman group point out the empowerment divide has not changed with the years of internet growth. Their research points out “participation inequality” remains constant, meaning 90% of users do not contribute in social networks, about 9% contribute infrequently, and a fraction 1% account for the majority of contributions, therefore, few take full advantage of the empowerment offer by internet technology (http://www.nngroup.com). Lastly, we want to look at some legal and ethical concerns with technology. Roblyer and Doering point out several areas concerning this; hacking, safety issues like online predators, students having access to objectionable material, online plagiarism, and illegal downloads (software piracy) (p.19). Technology enhance individuals can use “online systems to access personal data” of individuals for malicious acts such as identify theft. (Roblyer & Doering, 2013.p 18). This is known as hacking, unauthorized access to information such as a school systems main computer system. Individual and organizations must spend money installing “firewalls,” software that blocks unauthorized access to combat these problems taking funds from the technology budgets. In conclusion, Netsmartz points out that 95% of teens 12-17 years old have been online, therefore, the internet will continue to be a great tool for education, however, as educators we have to continue to increase our knowledge of it and make sure we are protecting our students from the people that want to misuse it. (http://www.netsmartz.org/internet).