Running head: DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IS A MINDSET 1

Digital Citizenship: A Course Analysis

Elizabeth Fuentes Malin

Lamar University
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Digital Citizenship: A Course Analysis

What did you learn about digital citizenship? Be specific. When I came back to pursue my

second graduate degree in administration, I took School Law. One unit discussed was on plagiarism and

copyright law. Upon taking Digital Citizenship, I did not have a clear conception of copyright

infringement. I now understand that Copyright infringement is simply any infringement upon the rights of

a copyright holder (Bailey, 2013). Copyright law gives a copyright holder (usually the creator of the

work) a set of rights that they can, and they alone can exploit legally (save for expectations such as fair

use) (Bailey, 2013). Writing an unauthorized sequel to a work as Bailey (2013) is an example of

copyright infringement. Copyright allows protections to the creator of a work of a tangible item, this

includes written material, books, printed material, digital works, artistic creations, poetry, software,

music, plays, novels, magazines, encyclopedias, and other printed literary works. When one initiates the

creation, the copyright is established. The person who created the copyright owns the work and the

copyright. Overall, the copyright has a protection of 150 years (80 initial years, plus another 70 years after

ones death). Plagiarism occurs when one takes another’s writing and passes it as their own.

What was your biggest accomplishment in the course? I believe my biggest accomplishments

of this course was increasing my awareness of how important being a good digital citizenship and

encouraging the best practices, specifically to our students. We can provide a safe learning environment

for students to practice these skills while developing as digital citizens. Teaching digital citizenship

should be a requirement in all schools across the world. It works best when it is given throughout the

year, modeled, and practiced.

What challenges did you face in completing this course? My biggest challenges in completing

this course were balancing my personal life and this course. I usually can handle a caseload, but the

universe was giving me too much for me to endure. With my mother-in-law and her cancer treatments,

social distancing, this course load, and distance learning, it was a lot to succumb to. I am glad I was able

to keep afloat, despite being barely keeping my head above water.

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What was your best work for the course and explain why it was your best. What did you

learn by creating it? Be specific. My best work for this course would be my journal reflections because

they allowed me to apply the applications to real-world applications. I was able to take my lessons learned

and critically think about situations regarding my own life, my student’s life, and society. We still need a

lot of work, especially with our students. I currently, after expressing the importance of digital etiquette

receive emails from students who demand their grades.

How does what you learned through completing this course connect to your outside the

classroom experiences? Be specific. Cyberbullying was a unit that was impactful to me because I lost a

former student to cyberbullying. It was Saturday, Mariah was turning her life around. Indeed, she joined a

UIL competition that Saturday and did very well. She was charismatic, intelligent, well-spoken, and

sassy! I speak of her in the past tense. As you can conclude, Mariah is no longer with us. The next

Sunday, Mariah hung herself. There was no note to indicate a motive, or her last words, nor wishes. She

hung on to life for about half a week. She ended up dying due to complications of her brain, lack of

oxygen, and her organs deteriorating. Mariah did not have the most supportive upbringing. Her mom had

many children with unstable fathers. Her mom often called her whore, stupid, and unworthy, as reported

by many of her teachers. She confided in teachers. They reported the abuse to the authorities and CPS

intervened, but she always went back to her mom. There was reported evidence that students were

bullying her online. Even after death, students were tagging in the hallways, “DEATH TO MARIAH.

BURN IN HELL!” Students can be so cruel. All of our teachers have a mindset of putting student’s

socioemotional needs before academics. We often see how our students are doing before instruction ever

begins. With all the SEL training and incorporating it into our lessons, it will never be enough. What

needs to change is less accountability with state regulations and standardized testing and more

accountability with our students. We need to increase empathy, digital citizenship awareness, and increase

cyberbullying awareness, affects, and ramifications with our students and school communities. I would

like to bring in a mental health awareness fair for all our students to participate in, so they can learn about

mental health awareness including issues such as cyberbullying.

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What was the one most useful or meaningful thing you learned in this course?

Reflecting on Nicholas Negroponte of MIT’s Ted Talk and his last prediction of how we will

learn by taking pills puts the future at the forefront. Regarding this pandemic and how education

is changing who knows where education, learning, and ingesting of information will come from.

Did anyone ever think we would go distance learning this early? People thought the idea of it

would occur some twenty years later. Is the invention of a pill that increases our knowledge of a

form of technology? What elements of digital citizenship would be applied to this pill? Are there

violations of ethics, privacy, and security? Currently, there is the ability to implant a chip in your

left wrist to put your life in the hands of a microchip. Helpful yet could be harmful.

What have you learned in this course that will help you continue to grow as an educational

leader? It is incumbent that we provide we stress digital citizenship should be a mindset, a culture, not a

curriculum. We can teach and model the nine elements of digital citizenship by teaching equitable lessons

that respect all learner’s backgrounds. When we teach, we can remind our students that not everyone

has digital access, how to safely shop and inquire as safe online consumers, emphasize the various modes

of digital communication, such as social media need to be done with careful consideration. Educators

need to emphasize that digital literacy is required to keep up with the changing technological factors, by

keeping up-to-date with current technology trends, digital etiquette emphasizes that everyone respects

themselves and each other in an online environment. Finally, teachers can provide a safe environment by

emphasizing digital law, that emphasizes legal ramifications, digital rights and responsibilities share an

equal part in society, that digital health and wellness are essential to balancing mind and physical health,

and digital security are important for protecting against cybersecurity elements.

What was your favorite aspect of this course? Why? Week 3’s Lecture was my favorite part of

this course. I always appreciated how Dr. Still always starts off with a temperature check. I appreciate her

efforts to putting our SEL before our academic learning. Although that is important if our hearts and

minds are not ready to engage, study, retain, and apply our studies, we will not be effective scholars,
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leaners, and contributors to understanding digital citizenship. I appreciate how she goes through the

overview to allow us to narrow down what we are doing. I am glad that she providing the link to “The

Secrets no One Tell You.” This will be an interesting read. The cyberbullying statistics piece is going to

be really impactful when we cover cyberbullying. I like how that is one of the last elements of digital

citizenship we discuss in the course. We need to make sure we are equipped and can help with awareness,

aiding in stopping cyberbullying, and educating our students on the topics. I look forward to reviewing it.

We, as Dr. Still (2020) stated, “do have an online presence.” Last week one of my Zooms was bombed

and it is a difficult time for all stakeholders. There was a lot of learning outcomes, but it is important that

we are fully abreast and aware of making sure we effectively apply copyright law in our educational

platforms. I liked how she stated “differentiating between ‘open’ and ‘free’ (Still, 2020). She stated that

we might have an extra class week. It would be nice. We usually have a week off between classes and this

past summer transitioning to the fall, we had no break in between. It was exhausting having to go into the

coursework and transition back from summer to teaching, virtually too!

What suggestions would you give other students on ways to get the most out this course? I

would encourage students to reflect on how these applications, best practices, and specifically nine

elements of digital citizenship apply to real life. When one applies these situations and digs deep, these

elements will start to make connections.

If you could change any one of the activities you did for this course, which one would it be?

Some of the topics were overlapping. When we had to define terminology and then define it in a journal

reflection. However, the journal reflections allowed us to put the applications into real-world

perspectives. What would you change about it? I would eliminate the portion in the week’s assignment

regarding defining some of the terminologies. Defining it in the journal reflections establishes it.

What will you say, if you have a chance to speak to your friends, about this course? I have

spoken about this course with a fellow technology applications teacher and reflected how the applications

I have learned will be applied to all of our students in our technology magnet course. I am implementing a
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curriculum based around BrainPop.

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References

Bailey, J. (2013). The difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Plagiarism

Today. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/10/07/difference-copyrightinfringement-

plagiarism/.

Creative Commons (2010). Creative commons attribution. Creative Commons.

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_Attribution.

Negroponte, N. (2014). A 30-year history of the future. Ted Talk. YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5BDoddOLA.

Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know.

(3rd ed.). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology Education.

Still, M. (2020). EDLD 5316 digital citizenship fall 1 20202 Week 3_0. Lamar University.

https://lamar.adobeconnect.com/pmwjf5c0pg7x/.

Journal Reflection URL: https://elizabethmalin.weebly.com/journal-reflections.html.