Digital Citizenship: Audience: A group of parents of elementary school students concerned about the growing issues of cyberbullying.

Definition: Digital Citizenship refers to ones ability to understand human, cultural and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. (Ribble, 2008) An Issue Related to Digital Citizenship: An extremely important issue related to digital citizenship is cyberbullying. According to STOPCyberbullying, cyberbullying is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. (STOPCyberbullying) This is a growing, very serious issue that schools, parents and communities need to address. According to Common Sense Media, 42% of teens and 97% of middle schoolers have been harassed online (www.commonsensemedia.org) . Yet only 10% of those students that are getting bullied inform their parents about the problem. Parents need to be aware of this issue so that they can be proactive: educate their children about how to be a responsible digital citizen and let them know what to do if they are being attacked. Cyberbullying is even more devastating to children than school yard bullying because it is constant. If a child is bullied at school, he/she typically can go home and feel safe. Cyberbullying, however, goes home with the child. In todays society, children are constantly online and in contact with their peers via the Internet and their cell phones. There is no way to get away from constant abuse that cyberbullying presents. Additionally, cyberbullying is very public. One simple harassing message can be shared with huge groups of people instantly. The bullies often have a sense of anonymity because they are completing this bullying online. They dont have the empathy or realize that they are hurting someone in a such a dramatic way because they are not face to face with their victim. They dont see the hurt on the persons face. Parents need to be educated about this issue and they need to be made aware of it now. The earlier we can begin training our youth to be quality digital citizens, the better. Parents need to instill proper, responsible and ethical digital behaviors in their children so that they can prevent cyberbullying from happening in the future. Objectives: 1. Parents will understand what cyberbullying is and how it could effect their child. 2. Parents will understand the concept of digital citizenship. 3. Parents will have some ideas of how they can encourage their child to be a quality digital citizen. 4. Parents will know where they can look for more information about cyberbullying.

Action Steps: 1. Organize a meeting of interested parents.

2. Educate the parents about cyberbullying. Discuss the definition of cyberbullying. Refer parents to the Stop Cyberbullying website. This website has valuable information about cyberbullying and gives advice to parents on how to be proactive against cyberbullying. 3. Discuss with parents what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. Refer parents to the article by Mark Ribble about the nine elements of digital citizenship (Digital Citizenship: Using Technology Appropriately). 4. Teach parents how to prevent and combat cyberbullying. a. Check in with your children regularly. Know as best as you can what your children are doing online. b. Establish a code of conduct. Teach your children the cyber Golden Rule. Dont text or post something that you wouldnt say to the persons face. c. Teach your children to take a few minutes and think before responding to something online. d. Educate your children about consequences of cyberbullying. i. The victim will be hurt and humiliated. There have been instances when children have killed themselves or others because of cyberbullying. ii. The bully can be made public. Even if the bully thinks he/she is anonymous, there are ways to track the individual and make the culprit known. iii. Once information is posted on the web, it is public for all to see. Future employers look on the web for information about people, etc. If you dont want everyone to know about what your doing right now in the future, then dont post it. iv. Sometimes cyberbullying becomes illegal and law officers will get involved. f. Encourage children to google themselves often. It is important to know what is on the web about you. 5. Make parents aware of additional resources that are available to learn more about cyberbullying. a. Stop Cyberbullying - www.stopcyberbullying.org b. Cyberbullying Research Center - www.cyberbullying.us c. Learn About Cyber Bullying - http://video.answers.com/learn-about-cyber-bullying516947964 6. Ask parents to begin discussion about cyberbullying in the community. Awareness is key to combating this issue. If the conversation about cyberbullying can be current and present, parents will be knowledgeable and can then pass the information on to their chidren. 7. Ask parents to inquire about their schools digital citizenship curriculum. There is a free designed curriculum by Common Sense Media (www.commonsensemedia.org) that teaches children about responsible and ethical digital behaviors targeting grades k-12. If the local school does not have a program in place, ask parents to encourage their principle and administrators to look adopt a digital citizenship curriculum.

Bibliography:
Ribble, M. (n.d.). Nine Elements.Digital Citizenship. Retrieved February 16, 2012, from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html Ribble, M. (2008). Passport to Digital Citizenship. Learning and leading with Technology, December/January 200809, 14-17. STOP cyberbullying: What is cyberbullying, exactly?. (n.d.). STOP cyberbullying: Cyberbullying - what it is, how it works and how to understand and deal with cyberbullies. Retrieved February 16, 2012, from http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html