Digital Citizenship video resources from Hoover, Alabama Schools and Common Sense Media

Educational leaders in Hoover, Alabama, have created a superb “teaser” video for upcoming parent education classes on digital citizenship which will begin this fall. The 3 minute, 35 second video includes well-planned scenes depicting the choices as well as consequences involved with cell phone sexting.

This is a remix of videos and images from several places, including the Ad Council’s “Out Of Your Hands” video. (60 seconds – embedding unfortunately disabled.) I think the Hoover, AL version is more powerful and thought provoking because of the way it sets up the scenario. You might recognize some of the kids on the couch in one of the closing images. 🙂

H/T to Jeff Richardson for sharing this video. Read Jeff’s post, “Educating Our Community in Digital Citizenship” for more background. He’s looking for other examples of similar parent education programs focused on digital citizenship.

Later this summer, Storychasers will be announcing a new 12 week Internet Safety / Digital Citizenship curriculum program for schools. This targets schools required to teach students about Internet safety as part of their E-Rate compliance. I’m glad to see Jeff and other leaders in his school system taking the approach of focusing on “digital citizenship” and not simply “Internet safety.” There’s a lot more to discuss here in addition to the typical “don’t do that” sort of lectures we see in popular online safety programs like iSafe. I much prefer the approach of groups like Common Sense Media, which offers a wealth of resources for educators, parents and students on topics including Internet Safety as well as Digital Citizenship. For more background about Common Sense Media, check out the great Seedlings webcast from April 15th with Emily Hunt of Common Sense. If you don’t already, I highly recommend subscribing to Common Sense’s YouTube channel. It’s full of tech tips for parents as well as movie reviews. Their 1.5 minute video, “Sexting: Time 2 Talk. Whats Sextings Real Message?” includes the most important Internet safety / digital citizenship strategy: Regular, open conversations between parents and kids. We’ve got to keep talking.

Although I’m not updating it weekly at this point, I am continuing to maintain the “Digital Dialog” learning community which I started on Ning several years ago, as a Buddypress-powered learning community hosted a subdomain of my blog. You’re welcome to join in conversations there about these issues!

For more related links, check out my social bookmarks for digital citizenship and Internet safety.

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citizenship, curriculum, digital, education, internet, online, parent, safety, school, youtube, sexting, awareness

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