Defining Digital Citizenship
Defining digital citizenship is not easy because it means different things to different people. It is also a concept which is debated among scholars researching the field.
If you conduct a general search for “digital citizenship” you will find many links referencing resources targeting the school-level, with a focus on safe, skilled and ethical use of online technology. While these aspects are important, for the purposes of this tertiary-level course, we need to explore the concept of digital citizenship in more detail.
Podcast on Digital Citizenship
Purpose
The purpose of this podcast is to get a sense of the people dimension of digital citizenship.
Meet Autumm Caines, associate director of academic technology from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Capital University in a podcast with Bonni Stachowiak.
- Listen to the first 15–20 minutes of this Teaching in HigherEd podcast on Digital citizenship. The podcast introduces aspects of digital citizenship and the learner experience in starting out with engagement with social media.
Refined Definition of Digital Citizenship
- Your outputs of this activity will be used in the learning challenge for this pathway.
- Read the introductory section of the Wikipedia article: Digital citizen
- Conduct a general search for “definition of digital citizen.” Choose the two best definitions and add these to the library of your citation management tool, or keep a record for citation purposes.
- Try and locate one recent scholarly definition for “digital citizen.” Record the reference for citation purposes. How recent is the reference?
- Revise your personal description of digital citizenship. Does your new definition differ from your initial description?