What is Digital Etiquette?Commonly referred to as "Netiquette," Digital Etiquette is the first building block for developing effective and appropriate Digital Communication skills. By teaching your students Digital Etiquette, they will become polite, responsible, and safe Digital Citizens.
The Golden Rule- "treat others the way you want to be treated"- is a good netiquette norm to start with. Other netiquette norms to establish in a K-2 classroom are:
|
Why is Digital Etiquette Important?
Digital Etiquette is not confined to Facebook and Instagram posts. Five to eight year old children normally don't have access to these platforms, but on average children are spending 49 minutes a day on online video platforms like YouTube and 40 minutes a day playing video games (Rideout & Robb, 2020). In that time, it's very likely that they are exposed to online comments and chatter and making themselves vulnerable for cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is defined as "when someone uses technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person" (Dovi, 2020). In a recent study from the Cyberbullying Research Center et al. (2020), 1 in 5 tweens (9-12 year old) has experienced some form of cyberbullying (There is no research available for 5-8 year old children at this time). This is a jarring statistic as cyberbullying can have very serious and long-lasting effects including anxiety, depression, and other stress-related disorders. Some tweens and teens have even attempted or committed suicide as a result of ongoing or severe cyberbullying (Dovi, 2020). It is essential as an educator that you be proactive and lay a foundation of Digital Etiquette that will help to protect your students. |
Resources for Teaching Digital Etiquette
You already have a great resource for teaching students about Digital Etiquette and you might not even know about it! At the start of the school year, your students and their parents had to sign an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) before they were allowed to use any devices provided by the school. An AUP lays out the rules and regulations for using technology, and it also outlines the consequences. Watch my public service announcement below and use your school's AUP to launch a discussion about Digital Rights and Responsibilities, including netiquette and internet safety.
If your school doesn't have an AUP yet, here's the link to the Digital Learning Pledge discussed in this PSA (Wilkey, 2020). It can be customized (with attribution) to meet the needs of your class.
BrainPop has a collection of videos on Digital Citizenship, including this one for Digital Etiquette. This video is available for free on YouTube, but If your school has an account, you have access to games, quizzes, and so much more.
(BrainPOP, 2021)
|
NetSmartzKids is a nonprofit organization with a mission to keep kids safe online. This video can be used in conjunction with the "Cyberbullying: Use Good Netiquette" activity found on pg. 15 of this Student Project Kit.
(NetSmartz, 2014)
|
Common Sense Education has a variety of 15-minute activities to teach Digital Citizenship in engaging ways. The Pause and Think video below is used as part of this mini lesson to encourage students to be kind, responsible and safe online.
(Common Sense Education, 2019)
|
![Creative Commons License](https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png)
Digital Citizenship with Ms. G by Leela Golgolab is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.