Category: Digital Citizenship

As I read some of the stories about victims of bullying, I was struck by a common refrain of parents after the bullying was discovered. The focus was often on what the school should have done or could be doing. In particular, this line in a story really struck me, “the bully prevention law we spearheaded in Vermont that holds schools accountable [emphasis added] for preventing and responding to bullying.”  This troubles me, not because I don’t think there is a value to educating students about cyberbullying but because I think it’s foolhardy to place the responsibility for monitoring and preventing it on schools when they have limited ability to prevent the activity.

While it is likely that much bullying (online or in-person) happens as result of relationships established in the school environment, schools have limited ability to control what happens outside the school environment–and rightfully so. Parents and guardians need to be expected and empowered to get involved in their children’s lives. If they are allowed–like has happened with so many parental responsibilities that have been dumped on teachers–to relinquish that responsibility to schools, there will be less and less that can be done. At the same time, since it is easier to pass laws aimed at schools, more and more laws will be passed and parents will be more disengaged.

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Understanding digital footprints is helped by at least a basic understanding of search engine optimization, something I’ve gained from a career in web development. Google’s major innovation was the PageRank algorithm, “a method for rating Web pages objectively and mechanically, effectively measuring the human interest and attention devoted to them.”  Dramatically oversimplified, PageRank considers the relative importance of each page and passes that rank through to all the pages that are hyperlinked from that page–simulating the importance that a standard user would give to the links from that page. Since that time, the major search engines have adopted similar search algorithms and built upon that. 

What that means for building a digital footprint is that there is, in fact, a way to build a digital presence by focusing on developing and being linked to from highly-ranked sites (like schools and colleges). Social media sites also tend to pass ranking, meaning that an ePortfolio, linked to from academic sites and regular postings from social media, is an excellent way to build a digital identity. 

My digital footprint: Eric L. Epps

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When I began looking into digital citizenship, my perception of the study could essentially be summed up as “don’t be a jerk online.” While of course that is a significant portion of digital citizenship, examining Ribble’s 9 elements–digital access, digital commerce, digital communication, digital literacy, digital etiquette, digital law, digital rights and responsibilities, digital health and wellness, and digital security –has given me a more expansive view of what is involved. 

One area that has been of particular interest to me is digital access. Access to information and digital resources is more ubiquitous than ever, but we are far from the author’s ideal of equal access for all. While it is unlikely that we will ever see true equality of access, where everyone has the same level of equipment, internet connection, and training, but we should nonetheless strive toward that goal. While one-to-one laptop programs and the like seek to address this problem, they are definitely not the whole solution to the problem. The best computer with an inadequate or no internet connection is only so useful. If the resources aren’t available to provide laptops for every student, what can be done? I think that one way to provide for equal access in the face of inequality is to imbue the curriculum with flexibility. Allowing the student choice–aside from a host of other benefits–allows them to make the best use of the resources they do have and complete a project that shows mastery of the subject matter. 

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