As technology continues its steady increase in amount as well as availability, it has become just as important for teachers to increase their understanding of technology. Developing strong, safe, and good digital citizens should be at the forefront of each teacher’s mind and should prompt a proactive initiative towards continuously learning how to develop these citizens.
Marty Park, co-author of the book “The Digital Citizenship Handbook for School Leaders: Fostering Positive Interactions Online” is no stranger to the topic. He states “What we want to do is get folks past the ‘Here’s the curriculum I’m using’ conversation. That’s not the end of the story. The end of the story is that there is no end to the story. There's continued development.” (Fingal, 2020). To his point, the learning process and the skill-building stages never end. Technology continues to change, and therefore so must our knowledge and our skills.
If students need the skills to “recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world”, as well as to “act and model in ways that are safe, legal, and ethical”, then it is the job of the teacher to understand the specifics of what that means, and to apply it to the current and ever-changing field of educational technology (ISTE, n.d, Standard 2).
Fingal, J. (2020, February 7). Digital citizenship: From don’ts to do’s to seamless integration | ISTE. ISTE. https://www.iste.org/explore/digital-citizenship/digital-citizenship-donts-dos-seamless-integration
International Society for Technology in Education. (n.d.). ISTE Standards for Students | ISTE. ISTE.org. https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students