Digital Rights and Responsibilities

Video Transcription

Hello, everyone. I hope you are having an excellent day. Today, we're going to focus in on digital rights and responsibilities. And for today's quote, I've chosen one that I'm sure is very familiar to all of you, a quote by Voltaire which states, "With great power comes great responsibility."

I think that this quote is especially appropriate. Because as we are teaching the students all of the amazing things that they can do in the digital world and all the rights that are afforded to them as they interact with those technologies, it's also important to equally stress the great amount of responsibility that comes as they begin interacting in the digital world.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to summarize the nine elements of digital citizenship. You'll be able to define specifically the element of digital rights and responsibilities. You'll be able to discuss why knowledge of digital rights and responsibilities are so important. And finally, you'll be able to identify what digital rights and responsibility elements your students should be learning.

Now, when we look at digital citizenship, we see that there are nine major elements to help make up digital citizenship, the first of which is digital access. Digital access has to do with the access that students in your classroom have or don't have to these technological devices and the way in which you as a teacher have to adapt in order to help your students of all access means become a digital citizen.

The second major element of digital citizenship is digital commerce. This looks at the way in which we buy and sell things using new technology as a medium and what we as teachers need to communicate with our students concerning buying and purchasing online.

The third major element of digital citizenship is digital literacy. This looks at how fluent we are, both we as teachers and our students, in the use of new technology. This looks at fluency both in and out of the classroom.

The fourth major element is digital etiquette focusing in on some of the norms our society has established for how we interact online and how we use these new technologies. The fifth element of digital citizenship is digital law. This takes the elements of digital etiquette one step further and focuses on the law pertaining to our interactions on the internet.

The sixth and seventh elements of digital citizenship are our digital rights and digital responsibilities. These elements focus in on the rights that we as teachers and our students have as we interact online and the responsibilities that come with those rights.

The eighth element of digital citizenship is digital health, which looks at the way we are protecting our health and well-being given our new modes of communicating and interacting with the internet. This looks at how we are affected both physically and emotionally.

And the final element of digital citizenship is digital security, focusing in on what are the elements that are put in place to help protect us as we interact online and become fully-fledged digital citizens.

So let's focus in specifically now on digital rights and responsibilities. First of all, what are they? Well, the definition of digital rights and responsibilities are the freedoms that are extended to everyone in the digital world and the way in which we need to be accountable with those freedoms.

Specifically, it's looking at the fact that we have the right-- all of our students have the right-- to use any and all digital technologies that are available so long as they are using them in an accountable and appropriate manner.

So why is it so important to know about digital rights and responsibilities? Well, first and foremost, digital rights are very similar to the rights that we have as citizens. These include the right to privacy specifically in our digital actions.

They include the right to free speech that we have online, our ability to say what we want to say in an appropriate manner. And it's important that we teach students in all classes kindergarten through high school and beyond the basic digital rights that they have as digital citizens.

However, it's also important to remember that with great power comes great responsibility. And that students need to understand what those digital responsibilities are. Sometimes, within the school, this gets focused on school versions of acceptable use of technology, what your specific school allows students to do and not do online.

However, it can also involve that students have a responsibility even though they might be allowed to do this or say that that they personally maintain high standards of digital etiquette and act in a way that help ensures that they are safe and secure when they are online.

So what specifically should you be teaching your students about digital rights and digital responsibilities? First of all, it's important to teach them their rights, that they should be protecting themselves and speaking up when they see that their rights are being violated. Specifically, this refers to cyber bullying. When students recognize that they might be being taken advantage of online, it's important for them to know that they should report this cyber bullying.

Now, this report can happen to the website hosts and even network administrators. It doesn't just need to remain at school. Many different social venues online are committed to impeding and removing those who are using their social networks as a means of bullying.

It's also important, though, to teach your students the responsibilities that come along with that. Every school and school district has different acceptable use policies. So it's important for you to know specifically what your school does and doesn't allow you and your students to do online and then to inform your students of what they can and can't be doing, the ways in which they should be using those networks and web sites that can and cannot be accessed.

Just because a school doesn't block a particular website doesn't mean that the use or certain interactions on those web sites follow along with the school's acceptable use policy.

This is especially important when we look at things like downloading movies or music or other media off the internet, especially when a student hasn't gotten consent from the owners for using those elements perhaps to enjoy or perhaps to use as a part of an educational project, so really teaching our students the rights that they have and to speak up for themselves but also the responsibilities that they must follow and be aware of.

Now that we've reached the end of our lesson, you are able to summarize the nine major elements of digital citizenship. You're able to define specifically digital rights and responsibilities. You should be able to discuss why knowledge of digital rights and responsibilities are so important to you and your students and identify specifically what parts of those digital rights and responsibilities you want to ensure that your students are learning.

Now I'd like to take a moment for reflection. As you look back on all that you learned about digital rights and responsibilities, what do you think will be the first step to implementing these elements in your classroom?

Now, to dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure that you check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find the links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.