Running head: TECHNOLOGY CHANGES IMPACTS DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP 1

Technological Changes Impacting Digital Citizenship

Elizabeth Fuentes Malin

Lamar University
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In the last twenty years, technology has shifted the way educators present engaging

lessons to meet the learning styles of learners. We are immersed in a mass media montage of

graphics and sound. Many educators turn to television programming, motion pictures, and music

to engage their students. With the technological advances, online experiences have housed all the

aforementioned mediums in a one-stop-shop, click-look-an-listen to experience. We can now

watch television on our cellphones, tablets, and computers through applications and browser

experiences. We can stream movies and television programming through Netflix, Hulu, and other

paid subscription services. Former premium television companies such as HBO and Showtime

are now online. Music streaming services from Spotify, iTunes, Google Play Music, etc. flood our

phones as music players. Predominately, teachers obtain many resources from The Internet

including television programming, movies, and music. They present these resources to their

students. In assessing their learning, lessons and assignments are created around various

mediums, media, and are utilized through various technological devices (hardware). Students

access applications (software) as an interactive piece during their lessons. Reflecting on the

changing technological advances and applications brings to the spotlight my own experiences

with technology during the last twenty years and how they have impacted my learning, teaching,

and my digital footprint while questioning if I practice good digital citizenship.

            In high school, I had recently learned Windows 95, and software such as MS Word,

Excel, and PowerPoint were very new to me. I had experienced the Internet first in 1997 at a

summer enrichment engineering camp at UTSA. We could not afford a computer, nor the

Internet. My first in-depth experiences were in college. Using the year 2000 as a starting point

takes me back to my freshman year of college. I had to type my papers on word processors such

as MS Word, Notepad, or Wordpad. Google Docs was not around, to my knowledge and I used
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freeware software often because I could not afford MS Products. The Internet was new, exciting,

informative, and entertaining all at the same time. I remember violating many acceptable use

policies before they were even developed. I downloaded illegal songs through Napster,

Bearshare, and other Mp3 files and peer-sharing networks. I also got my first cellphone in 2001.

Jumping forward four years or so, YouTube came out, I got my first smartphone called a

PocketPC. I had the Internet in my hand at my immediate reach. I graduated from college in

2004, went to graduate school in 2007, and saw the face of technology and the Internet change

around me. DVDs and CDs were almost obsolete due to streaming media such as Netflix and

YouTube. I began teaching in 2010 and I had to learn very quickly the laws of copyright and fair

use in the classroom. I learned a strong digital citizenship program through Brain Pop. I

incorporated some of those lessons throughout my teaching.

Reflecting on Nicholas Negroponte of MIT’s Ted Talk and his last prediction of how we

will learn by taking pills puts the future at the forefront. Regarding this pandemic and how

education is changing who knows where education, learning, and ingesting of information will

come from. Did anyone ever think we would go distance learning this early? People thought the

idea of it would occur some twenty years later. Is the invention of a pill that increases our

knowledge of a form of technology? What elements of digital citizenship would be applied to

this pill? Are there violations of ethics, privacy, and security? Currently, there is the ability to

implant a chip in your left wrist to put your life in the hands of a microchip. Helpful yet could be

harmful. 

       

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References

Negroponte, N. (2014). A 30-year history of the future. Ted Talk. YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5BDoddOLA.

Additional References

Poncia, W. (2020). The evolution of digital citizenship. Hapara. https://hapara.com/digitalcitizenship/.

Zimmerman, E. (2019). How technology can improve digital citizenship in k-12.

Ed Tech. https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2019/09/how-technology-can-improve-

digital-citizenship-k-12-perfcon.