Running head: DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP 1

Digital Citizenship: An Analysis of the Academy of Early Learning

James (Zan) Wiggins
Coastal Carolina University
EDIT 760, Section D1
June 28, 2018
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Introduction

The fifth and final ISTE NETS-A standard concerns to digital citizenship. At first glance,

this may seem like it relates to developing your online presence, but a more in-depth review

realizes it is related to the responsibilities and issues, especially social, ethical and legal, in the

current and future digital culture. Administrators need to understand the issues and

responsibilities related to the current digital culture and model and facilitate appropriate actions

for their faculty and for their students. In the study by Yorulmaz and Can (2016), school

administrators rated their level of comfort and competency with digital citizenship as very high.

Richardson, Bathon, Flora, and Lewis (2012) found in their literature review that standard five

along with standard four lacked significant research, especially in comparison to the first three

standards.

For the standard relating to digital citizenship, there are four indicators established.

Through my observations and conversations with the faculty and administration of the Academy

of Early Learning in the Marion County School District, I learned about each of these indicators,

as well as about the faculty’s overall impression of what digital citizenship means to them. It

should be noted that, per the faculty and administration, the district technology staff determine

what content is accessible and what content does not meet the staff’s idea of acceptable

educational content.

Performance Indicators

The first indicator for standard five addresses equitable access to tools and resources. The

faculty and administration were sure to address the fact that, as mentioned in previous reports,

they did not have the same access to technology in their classrooms as older grades within the

district because of the feeling that it is more important for the older grades to have technology
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access than the pre-k grades. Within the school, however, each classroom had the same

technology.

Having technology equity in the classroom is not the only aspect that technology leaders

need to be concerned about. With slightly under 90% of students being in poverty (South

Carolina State Report Cards, 2017), many students may not have access to technology at home,

and the stakeholders in the community may not have access to technology. The school does

provide recommendations for the parents as to where they can get access to technology, plus they

do allow, as appropriate and available, parents to access technology in the school. Indicator one

is not a concern to me at this school. The students have equitable access within the school, but

the access to technology outside the school varies greatly, which cannot be helped more than the

school already is.

Indicator two addresses the policy end of digital citizenship. The teachers and

administrators report that they are required to sign appropriate use forms and that the district

regularly monitors their computer usage. There is a person in the district office that manages the

district’s social media and web presence, and any post or publication is only placed on the web

by that person. Because the school does not have a 1:1 device initiative, along with the young

age of the students, the faculty and administration are not concerned about the students accessing

or posting inappropriate content. Though the students are at a young age, when developing a

technology plan for the school, the faculty and administration should incorporate some age-

appropriate lessons about internet safety. As Hollandsworth, Donovan, and Welch (2017) found

in their study, the majority of instruction on digital citizenship begins around grade three, but

nearly all of the respondents indicated that this topic should be introduced in preschool.

Indicator three discusses social interactions within technology use. Ciftci and Aladag
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(2018) found in their study that there is a significant difference in digital citizenship between

underclassmen and upperclassmen in pre-service education programs, which suggests that as

students’ progress through the program, classes and their interactions with technology positively

affect their digital citizenship. The faculty at the Academy of Early Learning have all been

teachers for a minimum of five years, so they have an understanding of the importance of

positive social media interactions, both between the teachers themselves and the teachers and

outside constituents. All of the teachers have social media accounts, but they all report having a

high level of privacy on their accounts so that people cannot simply search for them and bring up

their information. They all state they use the district-provided website for their classroom to

relate appropriate information to parents. Having known many of these faculty and

administrators for several years and being connected to them via social media, I have no

concerns about their use of electronic communications in a positive manner.

The final indicator for digital citizenship is having an understanding and involvement in

global issues. Though there are many concerns with the safety and security of information on the

internet as well as children being negatively influenced by information found or persons

contacted via technology, students need to understand the positive aspects of digital citizenship,

such as creating a voice for themselves and gaining an understanding of and participating in

global issues (Hollandsworth et al., 2017). The faculty at the Academy of Early Learning report

that students ask them about global issues that they may have heard from their parents or from

the television, so the teachers use that as a teaching moment. The principal states that after a

major event, either positive or negative, she instructs the faculty to incorporate that event into

their classroom in some way, and to use technology to show the students about that area or topic.

This typically happens through a video or simulation game that incorporates weather happenings
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in the game. At an older age, teachers would need to have a more formal plan for involving the

students in global issues, but at the pre-K level, this involvement seems to be sufficient.

Summary

Zhong (2017) reports that districts are the ones in control of the access to web content,

and that most digital citizenship performance relates to the legal aspects of technology use rather

than the development of social and ethical responsibilities. Therefore, it is up to the teachers and

school-level administrators, along with the parents to provide an awareness of all aspects digital

citizenship (Hollandsworth et al., 2017). Though the students at the Academy of Early Learning

can hardly read, the principal must take an active role in leading her teachers to facilitate proper

use of technology, including addressing the development of digital citizenship so that the

students will become effective users of technology.

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References

Ciftci, S. & Aladag, S. (2018). An investigation of pre-service primary school teachers’ attitudes

towards digital technology and digital citizenship levels in terms of some variables.

International Education Studies, 11(1), 111-118. doi:10.5539/ies.v11n1p111.

Hollandsworth, R., Donovan, J., & Welch, M. (2017) Digital citizenship: You can’t go home

again. Techtrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 61(6), 524-530.

Richardson, J. W., Bathon, J., Flora, K. L., & Lewis, W. D. (2013). NETS[middle dot]A

scholarship: A review of published literature. Journal of Research on Technology in

Education, 45(2), 131-151.

South Carolina State Report Cards (2017). Retrieved from https://ed.sc.gov/data/report-

cards/state-report-cards/2017/view/?y=2017&t=D&d=3410&s=000.

Yorulmaz, A., & Can, S. (2016). The technology leadership competencies of elementary and

secondary school directors. Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, 11(1),

47-61.

Zhong, L. (2017). Indicators of digital leadership in the context of K-12 education. Journal of

Educational Technology Development & Exchange, 10(1), 27-40.