Lisa O

A group of educators from around New Zealand has worked to create a Digital Citizenship Course for New Zealand students. http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Citizenship

Recognising both the need for a programme and also the reality that many schools/ teachers haven’t the time or opportunity to create a digital citizenship programme for their students, the group used a collaborative online environment to “crowd source” the ideas and content for this great resource.

Last Wednesday evening at the National Library Centre in Auckland, the programme was launched as an Open Educational Resource on WikiEducator with an invitation for all educators to use the programme with their students and to continue to develop this rich resource.

There are ten modules divided into primary, intermediate and secondary levels including:  basic skills, safety, privacy, copyright, plagiarism, research, integrity and more. The content has a Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA) licence. 

Digital citizenship in New Zealand is based in the key competencies of the NZ Curriculum.  It is built on a foundation of digital and print literacy, using technical and social skills to navigate, participate and deeply engage in the digital environment safely and ethically.  Netsafe provides a detailed definition of digital citizenship for New Zealand students. 

Take a look at this fabulous resource and consider how you might incorporate this course into your teaching.  If there is not a digital citizenship programme already in place at your school, take the lead and use this Open Resource to start one, or share it with a colleague who can activate it.

Digital Citizenship in the library

“School libraries are pedagogical centres where digital citizenship is promoted through explicit modelling, facilitated teaching and supported exploration of new ideas. 
The school library is a safe environment where expertise and access to technology and information of many kinds connects learners to global communities and ideas. The librarian has connections to all learners, learning formally and informally, and works closely with teachers to collaborate on integrated, authentic programmes that promote the ethical and sophisticated finding, using and creating of new knowledge. In many schools, the librarian is ideally placed to provide the energy and consistency required for a whole school digital citizenship programme.”  

Mark Osborne, Claire Amos and Andrew Cowie (on twitter at:  @mosborne01, @claireamos, @nealnz31)  three of the team who worked on the project promoting the resource at the launch