Commentary

Digital citizenship: developing an

ethical and responsible online culture
Cathy Oxley

Cathy Oxley is Director of

Information Services at Brisbane
Grammar
School,
Queensland.

Abstract

esponsible and ethical use of

the Internet is not something
that teenagers, in particular,
consider to be important, and
serious consequences are beginning
to emerge as a result of careless and
offensive online behaviour. Teachers
and teacher librarians have a duty
of care to make students aware of
the potentially devastating effects
of thoughtless, inappropriate or
malicious online behaviour, and to
guide them into making wise choices
when interacting in a digital world.
The
Australian
Government
recognises the valuable contribution
educators make in this regard, and
the Interim Report of the Joint Select
Committee on Cyber-Safety, released
in June 2011, outlines 12 out of 32
recommendations directly related
to schools, teachers and education,
commenting that, ... schools are
the key places to encourage young
people to improve their own safety
and online ethics. The Australian
Government has set up a national
cybersafety education program and
Cybersmart website for children,
parents and educators, and is
providing free online tutorials for
teachers wishing to help students deal
with the challenges of an online world.

Introduction
We live in an incredibly exciting time
of global connectedness and online
collaboration. However, while the
rapidly evolving world of the Internet
has profoundly revolutionised our
lives, it has also opened the door to
a whole new set of social problems,

Access 5

the speed of which has caught law

enforcement agencies and the public,
as a whole, by surprise. As a result,
parents, schools and the police seem
to be forever playing catch-up, with
20th century solutions often applied
to 21st century problems. In the
past, people were limited in their
sphere of influence to those with
whom they could physically come
in contact. Now, with the emergence
of interactive, collaborative Web 2.0
communication technologies, we
each have the world at our fingertips
literally and we each must
internalise how to behave in this
rapidly evolving world: in essence,
how to become digital citizens.
Almost every day the media publicise
examples of the misuse of social
networking sites, Internet scams or
cyberbullying. Along with illegal
downloads, credit card fraud, gaming
addictions,
Facebook
addiction,
viruses, hate sites, pornography and
predator grooming, these highlight
the dark underbelly of the Internet.
Our students inhabit this online
world, some for many hours each
day. While many of them already
have skills and strategies in place
for dealing with these problems
and protecting themselves and their
friends, teachers and schools have a
responsibility to educate them about
the dangers related to inappropriate
and unethical use of the Internet.
The Interim Report of the Joint Select
Committee on Cyber-Safety, released
in June this year, acknowledges
that teachers play a critical role in
helping children internalise positive
online behaviours: 'Schools are
the key places to encourage young
people to improve their own safety
and online ethics' (2010, p.27).
Parents,
teachers,
governments,
industry and organisations must all
work together to make the Internet a
safer place, especially for our children.

Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay are

two very active players in the digital
citizenship arena and they state:
It is not enough to open the gate and
let the sheep out to wander aimlessly
... Unsafe drivers cause accidents,
whereas educated drivers make the
roads safer. Likewise, educating
students makes the Internet a safer
place (Lindsay & David 2010).
It is not enough to have a set of
rules for children to follow at home
or at school, because there are so
many other opportunities for them
to access the Internet especially
now that laptop programs are being
implemented in schools, and many
children have Internet access via
their mobile phones. Instead, they
need to understand the reasons
for the rules and be able to make
thoughtful and critical decisions
when confronted by opportunities
to engage in inappropriate and
irresponsible
online
behaviour.

What is digital citizenship?

According to Mike Ribble, a pioneer
and passionate advocate who has
written extensively about the subject,
digital citizenship can be defined as
'the norms of appropriate, responsible
behaviour with regard to technology
use' (http://www.digitalcitizenship.
net/Nine_Elements.html). He has
analysed the types of behaviour that
comprise digital citizenship and
categorised these into nine elements:
1.

Digital
Etiquette:
electronic
standards of conduct or procedure.

2.

Digital
Communication:
electronic exchange of information.

3.

Digital Literacy: process of

teaching and learning about
technology and the use of technology.

4.

Digital Access: full

participation
in

electronic
society.

September 2011

Commentary

5.

Digital Commerce: electronic

buying and selling of goods.

6.

Digital
Law:
electronic
responsibility for actions and deeds.

7.

Digital
Rights
and
Responsibilities: those freedoms
extended to everyone in a digital world.

8.

9.

Digital Health and Wellness:

physical and psychological wellbeing
in a digital technology world.
Digital
Security
(selfprotection):
electronic
precautions to guarantee safety.

Vicki Davis defines digital citizenship

as 'literacy, safety, etiquette and
learning
strategies'
(Digital
Citizenship wiki), while Andrew
Churches has condensed it into:
Respect yourself, protect yourself.
Respect others, protect others.
Respect
intellectual
property,
protect
intellectual
property.
(Educational
Origami
wiki:
http://edorigami.wikispaces.
com/The+Digital+Citizen).
See
the
Brisbane
Grammar
School
Libguide
at:
http://
libguides.brisbanegrammar.com/
watchfulwaryandwise which contains
resources on most of these areas.

Why is a digital citizenship

program so critical?
Three of the biggest problems
facing young people today are:

their

perceived

their
accumulated
digital
portfolio
or
footprint

the

legal

anonymity

implications

of

thoughtless or malicious actions.

Perceived anonymity
What students often forget, or dont

Access 6

care about, is that their comments and

images can be viewed by hundreds
or thousands of others. Even adults
can get caught out this way. Carolyn
Bourne, a 60-year-old in England,
discovered this the hard way in June
this year when a scathing e-mail
she sent to her future daughterin-law went viral and was read by
millions of people around the world.
As soon as anything is posted
online, it can be retrieved forever.
An example of preserving content on
the Internet is the Wayback Machine
(http://www.archive.org/),
an
archive database where it is possible
to check websites the way they were
at a certain time in Internet history.
The Library of Congress has now
acquired the archive of all Tweets
since the introduction of Twitter
in 2006, to be kept as a snapshot
of our society for future reference
(Digital Trends). This means that
any comment that anyone has ever
posted on Twitter since its inception
is now permanently recorded forever.
Similarly, Facebook would have an
archive of everything posted on its
site and for legal purposes these
would also be searchable. It would
not be uncommon for many teenagers
to have 600 friends on their Facebook
account, and the implications for them
regarding who can see their posted
information is enormous. Students
need to learn to tighten their privacy
settings to reduce the incidence of
misuse of their online information.
There are numerous websites and blog
posts on the Internet showing how to
do this. Two examples by Mahendra
Palsule are: 10 solid tips to safeguard
your Facebook privacy, and 8 steps to
regain control of your Facebook privacy.
The National Teen Internet Survey
was funded by Cox Communications
in partnership with NCMEC and
John Walsh and was conducted

in March 2007 among 1,070 teens

age 13 to 17. Findings included:

A majority of teens (58%) don't

think posting photos or other
personal information on social
networking sites is unsafe.

About half (49%) are unconcerned

that
posting
personal
information
online
might
negatively affect their future.

Teens readily post personal

information online. Sixty-four
per cent post photos or videos of
themselves, while more than half
(58%) post information about
where they live. Females are far
more likely than male teens to
post personal photos or videos
of themselves (70% versus 58%).

Nearly one in 10 teens (8%)

has posted his or her mobile
phone
number
online.

Forty-nine per cent of high

school students have posted
personal information on their
Web pages such as name, age,
or address that could assist
a stranger (from: http://www.
safesurfer.org/websafe.html).

For teenagers, the two YouTube

video clips Think before you post
and Once you post it you lose it
are graphic reminders about the
potentially devastating consequences
of
students
casually
posting
information about themselves online.
Younger children often innocently
post personal information online that
can lead to cyber grooming, then dont
recognise it and often dont know
how to deal with it. A street name and
number can easily be found using
Google Maps street view and Google
Earth. Watch the YouTube video
Exposing private information online to see
how easy it is to track children down.

September 2011

Commentary

Accumulated digital
portfolio or footprint
The YouTube video Digital Dossier
gives an overview of how much
information is accumulated about
each of us over a lifetime, whether we
created it or not and whether we like
it or not. A potential problem young
people need to consider more seriously
is the fact that most employers
now check potential candidates on
Google or Facebook before they offer
interviews. According to a 2007 survey
conducted by Online Recruitment,
20% of employers surveyed said they
used 'social networking' sites to run
searches on job applicants and 68%
of employers used search engines to
check on candidates: http://www.
onrec.com/news/employers_use_
facebook_for_further_background
Daniel Schwabels 2011 blog post, 5
Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will
Replace Your Resume in 10 Years, shows
how personal online information is
becoming increasingly important
to potential employers and the blog
post Can Facebook Impact on Your
Current Job or Interview? (republished
on Bloggers Base) outlines why
we need to teach students to be
thoughtful and vigilant about which
photos and details they share online.
However,
potential
employees
are not the only ones checking
information
online.
Fraudsters,
scammers and identity thieves can
all find a wealth of information about
people if they know where to look.
According to JessicaM (http://www.
squidoo.com/personalInformation):
... it is quite easy to search private
information on the Internet on almost
everyone there are hundreds of
people search or background check
websites on the Internet. You can
make a background check on a lost
friend, a missing relative, a potential

Access 7

date, a new neighbour, a prank caller,

a ruthless car driver, an unknown
mobile number, an unlisted phone
number, your boss, your co-worker,
or strangers you never meet. On
the flip side, not only can you find
anything about others, people can
also find anything about you
which includes your personal records
and private information. Creditors,
banks, political parties use your
personal data for legitimate purpose.
However, unscrupulous individuals
and criminals can use the same
information to harm you and your
family. With the full availability of
your personal information, your
identity can be stolen or exploited
in illegal activities such as identity
theft, predatory marketing, credit
fraud
and
Internet
stalking.
The website 25 free search engines to
find anyone shows how easy it is to
track down people you are interested
in finding. While JessicaM gives a
very comprehensive overview of how
to remove personal information from
Google and the Internet, the reality
is, while many older people do not
want their information made public,
it seems that most of the younger
generations just dont care. In future,
it is quite likely that removing or
hiding content on the Internet will
become a thriving business once
current generations realise how
much their careless postings will
influence their lives in later years.

examples of cyberbullying and

a video going viral is The Star
Wars Kid. In 2002, Ghyslain Raza
filmed himself, at his school in
Quebec, mimicking Darth Maul
from Star Wars. Unfortunately
his friends found the video and
uploaded it to the Internet, where
it went viral. It is estimated that
it has been watched more than
a billion times and has been
reworked into other videos
hundreds of times. Ghyslain
endured terrible bullying and
severe depression after the video
was posted and his parents sued
the boys who had posted it for
$250,000. Today he has managed
to move on and is now a lawyer.

In the US, Megan Meier was

a depressed 13-year-old who
hanged herself after a MySpace
relationship with a boy turned
sour. The problem was, the boy
was the mother of one of Megans
friends in her neighbourhood,
and she deliberately set out to
make Megan pay for upsetting
her daughter. At the time, no
legislation existed to charge Lori
Drew for committing a crime;
however, the prosecutors had
hoped for a 20-year jail term.

In the UK, a teenager who posted

death threats on Facebook has
become the first person in Britain
to be jailed for bullying on a
social networking site. Keeley
Houghton, 18, of Malvern,
Worcestershire,
has
been
sentenced to three months in a
young offenders' institution after
she posted a message saying that
she would kill Emily Moore.

Eighteen-year-old Philip Alpert

from Orlando had just had an
argument with his 16-year-old
ex-girlfriend when he sent a
naked photo of her to dozens of

Legal implications
We need to reinforce the fact that
once students post something its
out of their control and its out there
forever. Freedom of speech does not
equate to freedom from consequences
and there are now many examples
of young adults being sued or
prosecuted because of careless
or deliberate Internet postings.

One

of

the

most

famous

September 2011

Commentary

her family and friends. He was

arrested on child pornography
charges, given a five-year
probation and registered as
a sex offender until he turns
43. He's been kicked out of
college, he cannot travel out
of the county without making
prior arrangements with his
probation officer, he has lost
many friends and is having
trouble finding a job because of
his status as a convicted felon.
At the same time, Alpert says,
'I'm being punished for the rest
of my life for something that
took two minutes or less to do'
(http://edition.cnn.com/2009/
CRIME/04/07/sexting.busts/).

Using the Internet to create

a positive digital footprint
While the majority of media reports
that we hear highlight the negative
use of the Internet and social
networking sites, it is very refreshing
to know that there are also many
young people who are using the
Internet to change the world for good.

Ryan Hreljac was just seven

years old when he raised money
for clean drinking water for
African children. His first well
was built in 1999 at a school in a
Ugandan village and continues
to serve thousands of people.
The Ryans Well Foundation now
involves over 650 schools from
30 countries in fundraising
activities. They have completed
over 560 water and sanitation
projects, providing access to
clean water, improved sanitation
and hygiene education for
over 670,000 people. The Ryans
Well Foundation website can
be found at: http://www.
ryanswell.ca/about-us.aspx
At the age of 17, with a passion

Access 8

for social issues, Yassmin AbdelMagied founded Youth Without

Borders, an advocacy group that
strives to empower young people
to work together to implement
positive change within their
communities
in
Australia
and overseas. Yassmins web
page
is
at:
http://www.
youthwithoutborders.com.au/
node/6

25 Days to Make a Difference was

a blog set up by Laura Stockman
in honour of her grandfather, a
very caring and generous person.
To honour her grandfathers
memory, she tried to make a
difference every day for 25 days.
Laura blogged about it at: http://
twentyfivedays.wordpress.com

Working
Together
to
Make
a
Difference
(http://
workingtogether2makeadiffer
ence.ning.com) is a website
set up by Jenny Luca in
response to Laura's blog.

When 21-year-old Chris Raine

decided to spend a year without
alcohol and blog about it, he
didnt realise how many young
people he would influence. His
blog, Hello Sunday Morning,
now reaches over 9000 people
and has over 75 bloggers
around the world (http://
hellosundaymorning.com.au/
category/chris/). To read about
why he created this blog, go to:
http://hellosundaymorning.
wordpress.com/chris-rainehello-sunday-morning/

How do we teach digital

citizenship?
There are hundreds of sites now set
up to deal with this ever-growing
problem. Here are just a few where
you can participate or download free
activities to use with your students:

ACMA Cybersmart website and

Connect.ed tutorials

The Australian Government, in

conjunction with the Australian
Communications
and
Media
Authority, has put together an
excellent site to help children, teachers,
library staff and parents become
better informed about cybersafety
issues. The sites objectives are
to inform, educate and empower
and there is a wealth of resources
included for different age levels.
There is also a free online tutorial
program that teachers can access, as
well as workshop sessions around
the country that provide teachers
(including casual relief teachers) with:
... a comprehensive understanding
of a modern student's technology
profile, digital literacy, positive online
behaviour, personal and peer safety
and the school's and teachers' legal
obligations to minimise and address
risks
(http://www.cybersmart.
gov.au/outreach.aspx#CON).

Alannah and Madeline Foundation

The National Pilot to Increase CyberSafety in Schools was conducted

by the Alannah and Madeline
Foundation (AMF). It involved 164
government and non-government
schools in urban, rural and remote
regions
and
helped
confront
safety issues in e-communications,
including
cyberbullying
and
examine the effectiveness of existing
cybersafety programs in schools.
The
Queensland
Government
announced on 14 March 2011
that eSmart will be rolled out to
all Queensland state schools by
the AMF in partnership with the
Queensland
state
government
(https://www.esmartschools.org.
au/Pages/eSmartPortal.aspx).

September 2011

Commentary

On 12 April 2011, the Victorian

government
also
announced
$10.5 million of funding to
promote
the
eSmart
program
across Victorian schools (http://
www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/
DigitalEducationRevolution/
Pages/AMFoundation.aspx).

tutorial for
which aims

Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey

(2005) have developed a series of
scenarios to discuss with students
along with a digital compass:

Adinas Deck

This is a DVD series of digital

citizenship scenarios, designed to
make middle school-aged students
think more carefully about online
issues. You can purchase them from:
http://adinasdeck.com/shop/
Episode 1: Solving cyberbullying
mysteries.
Episode 2: The case of the online crush
(online predator).
Episode 3: The case of the plagiarised
paper.

Conclusion
As well as physical danger from
inappropriate use of the Internet,
children also face emotional and
psychological trauma and legal
ramifications. Teachers have a duty
of care to ensure that students are
empowered to deal with these
challenges, while at the same time
recognising that many already have
safety mechanisms in place and many
are already using the Internet to
create a positive online presence. The
key to the future may well lie in one
of the recommendations of the Joint
Select Committee: involve students
more in peer mentoring and use
them to teach others how to become
responsible and ethical digital citizens.
Three key learnings:

Irresponsible and potentially

harmful use of the Internet
is
escalating
alarmingly.

Most children and teenagers

need to be taught ethical and
responsible ways to behave
when
using
the
Internet,
particularly
as
information
online is out there forever.

Young

Hectors World

Hectors World is a free online space for

2- to 9-year-olds and their parents and
teachers, where animated characters
learn how to become confident
and responsible digital citizens.
MyWorld

MyWorld

is

Access 9

digital

literacy

students
students:

... essential digital literacy skills

through simulating their favourite
online experiences. The tutorial is
divided into four chapters, each of
which focuses on a particular aspect
of digital literacy: researching and
authenticating online information,
managing privacy and reputation,
dealing with online relationships
and using digital media in
an
ethical
manner.
(http://
w w w. m e d i a - a w a r e n e s s . c a /
english/catalogue/products/
descriptions/myworld.cfm)

Digital Compass Activity

Students often argue that there are

shades of gray when interpreting each
scenario. The purpose of the compass
metaphor activity is to help students
analyse the concept of technology
use and misuse The best way to
help others to understand the right
direction is through discussion,
self-reflection and role modelling.

secondary
to teach

people

should

encouraged
to
create
a
positive digital profile and
to use the Internet for good
and
worthwhile
projects.
2010 Diversity Challenge Resilience:
School Libraries in Action Proceedings
of the 12th Biennial School Library
Association of Queensland, the
39th
International
Association
of School Librarianship Annual
Conference
incorporating
the
14th
International
Forum
on
Research in School Librarianship,
Brisbane
QLD
Australia,
27
September

October

2010.

References
Commonwealth of Australia, 2011,
High wire act: Digital safety and the
young. Joint Select Committee on
Cyber-Safety Interim Report.
Lindsay, J & Davis, V 2010, 'Navigate
the digital rapids.' Learning & Leading
with Technology 37.6: 12+. Expanded
Academic ASAP. Web. 25 May 2010.
Ribble, MS & Bailey,
'Developing
ethical
Learning & Leading with
32.7: 36+. Expanded
ASAP.

Web.

25

GD 2005,
direction.'
Technology
Academic

May

2010.

For all websites, YouTube videos,

practical activities and news articles
referred to in this commentary, please
visit: http://www.asla.org.au/pubs/
access/a_commentary_index.htm

be

September 2011

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.