Emily Kapfer Mora

Digital Citizenship

ISTC 731

Summer 2021
 My kindergarten students struggle most with Digital Law, primarily because they are too

young to know about laws regarding technology. However, this does not mean they could not

be taught about digital laws in ways appropriately explained to young children. Digital Access is

probably my students’ biggest strength. We are fortunate to have one-to-one Chromebooks in

our classroom in addition to a Promethean board/projector, one-to-one laptops in the media

center, and a computer lab in our school. Students have 45 minutes per week of designated

‘technology skills’ where they practice logging in, navigating to a specific website, and using

their keyboard and trackpad to gain digital fluency.

It is easy for me to engage my students in digital citizenship by allowing them time to

practice their technology skills every week with Chromebooks and every day with our

Promethean board. To go further into the community, I can encourage parents and families to

allow their child screen time at home; while this often has a negative connotation, it is my

responsibility to explain to families how educational technology can be and that using

technology both at home and at school will help students develop their digital fluency. I can

also collaborate not only with my grade-level teammates, but with the other staff members I

work with, such as the ESOL teacher, special educator, media specialist, and reading specialist.

As I collaborate with these colleagues, we can share ways to incorporate technology into our

instruction.

I chose to review the ‘Safety in My Online Neighborhood’ lesson designed for

kindergarteners (Safety in My Online Neighborhood, 2021). The essential question for this

lesson is “How do you go places safely online?” The lesson begins with drawing on students’

background knowledge on how to stay safe when they go new places. Once students share
some ideas, the teacher guides them to compare how this is similar to staying safe online.

There is an animated video to support student understanding of online safety with

comprehension questions for the teacher to follow up with. The lesson continues with a poem

about online safety, including the three safety rules to follow. After students have had these

opportunities to learn the online safety rules, there is an internet field trip where students can

practice following the rules they have learned. They can explore any “place” the teacher

chooses, but online children’s zoos are suggested. The teacher supports students throughout

the field trip by asking questions to ensure students are remembering to follow the three rules

to stay safe online. The lesson ends with closure as the teacher and students discuss what they

learned and practiced about online safety.

This lesson meets Digital Access, Digital Communication and Collaboration, Digital

Fluency, Digital Health and Welfare, Digital Law, and Digital Security and Privacy (Nine

Elements, n.d.). A major strength of this lesson is the consistent follow-up for understanding.

After the introductory video, the poem, and the field trip exploration, the teacher is directed to

always come back to summarize what was just learned before moving on to the next part of the

lesson. Another strength here is the use of hands-on exploration. The bulk of the lesson is spent

allowing students to participate in the virtual field trip independently. The teacher is there to

ask guiding and redirecting questions, but students have the capabilities to explore on their

own. This is the best way for students to learn; they were able to receive direct instruction in

the beginning of the lesson, which was followed by independent, yet guided, exploration. This

lesson’s biggest weakness is that it does not foster collaboration among peers. There are
chances for whole group discussions and interactions between teacher and student, but none

between classmates.

I feel that I could implement this lesson with little to no alterations in my kindergarten

classroom. I could present the direct instruction slides on the Promethean board, which include

the video and poem. We would have class discussions to answer the questions about online

safety throughout the first part of the lesson. When it was time for students to practice their

online safety, each student could use a Chromebook at their seat. I would guide students to

remember online safety while they were doing their independent exploration by calling

students’ attention while they remained on their Chromebooks.

To change this lesson to improve the weakness I identified, I would allow students to

work in collaborative partnerships during the field trip exploration. Instead of asking students

as a group about the rules of internet safety, students would be asked to tell their partner the

three safety rules. This would give students extra support if they had trouble remembering

while also giving the advanced students an opportunity to show what they have learned by

teaching their partner. Students would be able to discuss what they see on the virtual field trip

instead of working quietly by themselves.

While this lesson already has much technology integrated into it, I think altering the

poem to be more technologically interactive would enhance the lesson. This lesson is for

kindergarten students and many students this young are not fluent readers. If the poem

included a narration feature, students, and especially auditory learners, would have another

tool to support their understanding of the poem. Furthermore, if the poem could be read by a
digital narrator and show the text highlighted while each word was read, students would be

able to follow along with the poem.

 References

Nine Elements. Digital Citizenship. (n.d.).

https://www.digitalcitizenship.net/nine-elements.html.

Safety in My Online Neighborhood. Common Sense Education. (2021, February 8).

https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/lesson/safety-in-my-online-

neighborhood.