Digital Leadership

Creating a Positive online Identity

As part of the Research Project students document their research findings in their Edublogs site. In doing this, students learn digital literacy and how they can use the Internet in their lives. Blogging is an opportunity to teach life skills to give students greater control over their digital identity and to see how a positive online footprint can be a benefit in their future academic and professional lives.

A recent article in The Conversation on the “Best Footprint Forward” project revealed that children have strategies to keep safe online, but they need further guidance on how to build a positive digital footprint.

Digital footprints can be an asset or a liability for children. Building on their knowledge by giving them guidance in curating a positive online presence could go a long way to help children shape their own future.

Developing Digital Leadership

Blogging also teaches students digital leadership as students reflect on their learning and write comments on other students’ posts.  Matthew Lynch in an article for the Tech Edvocate wrote that,

Digital leaders do more than consume information. They synthesize learning and use it in collaborative environments. Digital leaders are dynamic change agents who transform the status quo, facilitate better communication and understanding, and integrate a variety of technology tools in their lives.

Personal Branding

In creating an academic blog students develop their digital literacy and their online presence to shape their ‘personal brand’ and how they want the world to see them.

In her book Reinventing Writing, Vicki Davis outlines the fundamentals of responsible digital citizenship through the “9 key Ps.” Putting these practices into daily use in your classroom is a great way to model digital citizenship for your students.

  1. Personal Brand

Explain and display how anything we share online travels across the globe and lives forever. Your students need to decide on what they want the world to see and understand that nothing online can ever be erased entirely. Do your students understand their digital footprints?

Further Reading

Why Children Should Be Taught To Build A Positive Online Presence. by 

Students Should be Taught to be Digital Leaders Instead of Digital Citizens by Matthew Lynch on The Tech Edvocate

Modelling Digital Citizenship in the Classroom by Matthew Lynch on The Tech Edvocate

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email