Welcome to Digital Citizenship!
This is a one-trimester ninth grade course that will ask you to consider the impact of the Internet on our lives, our society, and the world. Along the way you’ll also develop several skills that will help support your personal, academic and professional success.
Before We Begin
Here are three important things to know about our Digital Citizenship class:
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This course is self-contained — most work can be done in class, and you don’t need to know anything about class topics before we study them. Success is entirely based upon effort, and there’s plenty of room to experiment, try new things — sometimes fail (that’s how we learn, after all) — and change course.
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There is no scheduled homework, though if you miss class you are still responsible to make up missing work. You also don’t have to purchase a textbook or any other materials. While you’re welcome to bring your own computer, you don’t need one. Everything you’ll need can be provided in class.
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We don’t issue letter grades in this class. Your participation will be listed on your academic transcript with either a “Pass” or a “Fail” designation instead of a letter grade, along with an effort grade, as described in more detail in the Grading and Assessment section below.
Getting Started for Students
To get an idea of what this class is about…
- Start by reading the rest of this page, including the Essential Questions and Course Overview. Then, check out the Roadmap to see the most likely order of the topics and activities we’ll cover.
- Next, become familiar with the course Expectations and Badges. They tell you what you need to do to stay on-track, and how you’ll know where you stand.
- Finally, take a look at our Class Topics and Student Work to learn about what we’ll cover and what you’ll be doing in more detail.
Optional: if you’re interested, you can also take a look at the Framework and Standards page, which describes how the content of this class connects to state and national educational standards, as well as Watkinson’s essential skills list.
Getting Started for Parents
To get an idea of what this class is about…
- Start by reading the Note to Parents to get an overview of the goals for this class and the reasoning behind it, then read the rest of this page, including the Essential Questions and Course Overview.
- Next, read the Framework and Standards page to see how this curriculum aligns with educational standards and Watkinson’s essential skills list.
- Finally, take a look at our Class Topics and Student Work to see what your children will be learning and doing in class.
Optional: if you’re interested, you can also take a look at the Roadmap page which details the progression of topics and activities through the trimester, as well as the Badges page to see how student achievement is recognized, tracked, and celebrated.
Essential Questions
Essential questions help focus our efforts and provide us with room to explore our content in a deep and meaningful way.
For this class, our essential questions are:
What are the rights, responsibilities, and challenges of being a digital citizen? What skills are essential to be successful online?
We will attempt to answer these questions through the topics we explore, the content we create, and the decisions we make about how we choose to participate in the online world.
Course Overview
Objectives
By the time you complete this course, you should be able to:
- Find and identify high-quality, relevant, and accurate information online
- Define and understand plagiarism as it relates to finding and using online content in academics
- Explain the basics of copyright and intellectual property
- Evaluate, adjust and monitor your online presence, privacy, and security
- Understand, monitor, and control how your behavior is shaped and your personal information is shared online
- Discuss the impact of the Internet on us individually, on our families and friends, and our society
- Use a variety of tools to effectively convey information online
Activities
As mentioned above, this course is self-contained. There is no homework, and there are no textbooks or other materials required. All of the work you do can be accomplished during class, and the activities are designed to help you better understand and apply the topics and skills we’ll cover.
Primary Activities
You’ll be using the Internet to locate, retrieve, and cite high-quality information about a variety of topics, and you’ll be asked to describe the successes and challenges you face along the way. At the start of most classes you’ll have a challenge task, many of which are search related. As a class leader you’ll also have an opportunity to use your search skills to expand upon our learning by locating and sharing resources related to class topics. Completing search-related activities helps you to earn your Search Badge.
Topic Discussion
You’ll be asked to form an opinion about a variety of topics that relate to our online lives, and then share your thoughts about them online and in-person. For more information about the topics we’ll explore, please see the Class Topics page. Fully participating in class discussions helps you to earn your Citizenship Badge.
You’ll be contributing to our class Learning Blog by posting various types of content online: a brief introduction that describes something you enjoy doing online, a review of an online creation or presentation tool, and a research post about a topic of your choice, in addition to other work. Posts can be formatted in a variety of different ways, including web articles, graphic designs (like infographics), traditional media (like podcasts and videos), and interactive media (like video games and animations). These posts not only help you to learn more about your subject, they’re also an opportunity to learn new ways to convey information online, or to improve your existing digital communication skills. Successful posting to the class blog helps you to earn your Scholarship Badge.
Secondary Activities
Public Sharing of Student Work and Images
Much of the student work done for this class will be shared on a publicly-accessible web site and actively promoted to family and members of our learning community. Please be ready to share your project and be included in the class reporter’s daily work summary.
Your privacy is also important. We will discourage search engines from indexing our class site, and we will only use first names and last initials to attribute work. While we check with our Communications Department to verify media inclusion preferences, if your family would prefer not to have photos of you placed on our site, please let your teacher know as soon as possible.
Responsibilities
Each student is responsible for their own learning. The Class Expectations page provides more detail, however the class rules are simple:
- Try your best to learn during class. If anything is preventing you from learning, please inform your teacher.
- Listen to directions carefully and follow them.
- Check for class-related email regularly, and reply when requested.
- Raise your hand before speaking.
- Keep your hands and feet to yourself.
- Respect your classmates, your teacher, and your equipment.
Grading and Assessment
This class has no letter grades, tests or quizzes. Instead, you’ll be demonstrating learning through your participation in class activities and in the class blog posts you create.
This gives you the ability to try new things, experiment, sometimes mess up, and persist until you achieve your goal — without having to worry about your grade along the way. You will still be expected to put forth your best effort, however, and the best way to do this is to pick topics that interest you and find ways to stay engaged.
As you complete these activities, you will earn points, gain levels, and be awarded badges that recognize your achievements. More information about how points, levels, and badges work is provided on the Badges page.