SMART DAY 10, Teaching With The Tools Kids Really USE, Chapters 10-11

With more and more time spent online, individuals are developing online personalities outside of their real world persona. Chapter 10 of Teaching With The Tools Kids Really Use, Brooks-Young provides some guidelines for individuals to keep in mind as they interact with the world wide web. The topics covered range in degree of variability, but I think include several important tips. The most important one and the most general would be that of respect. Respect works in to manners, respect for the user and respect for others. In my opinion, respect serves as the foundation for model digital citizen. If a user has the correct sense of respect, then other topics Brooks-Young mentions should happen naturally.  Other topics Brooks-Young mention in light of a model digital citizenship include, privacy, plagiarism, and cyber bullying.  To be a model citizenship I think users need an understanding of how various interactions on the web affect not only themselves, but others. For example, the plagiarism problem. Students might think they are saving themselves time by simply copy and pasting, however they are working against themselves and not giving credit where credit is due. I honestly think that if users have a clear understanding of what respect is and how it plays into their interaction on the internet most if not all problems will be taken care of.

I have heard of Sexting from my little cousins in Middle School. They were telling me about how pictures of their friends were being sent around and how inappropriate messages were being sent as well. I never really heard of sexting till it was explained to me by my cousin. What Sexting is, is just awful. Not just to the persons the text messages or pictures are being sent to, but the overall message its is carrying. Students that participate in such behavior clearly have no respect for them or for their peers. I think students do not realize the harm that it can cause, because they more than likely see sexting as a norm within their generation. In my personal opinion, the only way to combat sexting within the educational atmosphere would be to enforce a no cell phone policy among the school. This places a safeguard around the educational institution, the teacher, and the students. I almost seeing it as creating an attitude that as long as it doesnt happen at school, its not really the teachers problem. That is a good mindset to have as long as it does not turn into a social abuse probem, then the teacher is obligated to step in. Combating sexting involves a thin line between teacher-parent discipline and student involvement.