Digital Citizenship Week and Cyber Security Awareness Month

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Digital Citizenship Week is also in October, October 15-19.

These are some resources that can be used by students, employees, and parents to help promote and gain a better understanding of cyber security and digital citizenship.

Digital Citizenship Week - October 15-19
The first place to start for digital citizenship is Common Sense Media. CSM provides a free K-12 digital citizenship curriculum that can be integrated in the classroom or computer lab.

Check out the "4 Ways to Get Started Teaching Digital Citizenship" resource. You will need to create a CSM account in order to access the suggested resources.

You can encourage parents to take part in Digital Citizenship Week by taking the #DeviceFreeDinner challenge and/or sharing family engagement resources from Common Sense Media.

For elementary students, include one of these books during read aloud time to help discuss digital citizenship.

For secondary students, you can discuss ways to check facts online. Use this article from ISTE to help you get started.

For teachers on Twitter, search for #DigCit and connect with other educators discussing digital citizenship.


Cyber Security Awareness Month

2018 is the 15th year for Cyber Security Awareness Month. This month's overarching theme is "Cybersecurity is our shared responsibility and we all must work together to improve our Nation’s cybersecurity.".

Department of Homeland Security provides Cyber Security resources for K-12 classrooms. Check out Be Cyber Smart.

For parents and employees, check out the good online safety habits from STOP, THINK, CONNECT. These habits include:

- keep a clean machine
- protect your personal information
- connect with care
- be web wise
- be a good online citizen
- own your online presence


How are you promoting and/or teaching about cyber security and digital citizenship this month? Share your ideas with us!

Digital Citizenship Week

Next week is Digital Citizenship Week.  Although this topic should be taught 24/7, we can use next week to stress the importance to education stakeholders like parents and community members. 

If you do a Google search for digital citizenship resources, you will come up with some great resources! Below are some I have shared with fellow educators.

The number 1 resource is Common Sense Media! If you have never explored the Common Sense Media website, stop right now and check them out! CSM offers a free, K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum. The lessons are 45 minutes each and provide teachers with a guide for how to discuss the topics in the classroom. The curriculum is constantly evolving to include resources in multiple languages and meet the various standards. The lessons focus on 8 topics:

~ Internet Safety
~ Privacy & Security
~ Relationships & Communication
~ Cyberbullying & Digital Drama
~ Digital Footprint & Reputation
~ Self-Image & Identity
~ Information Literacy
~ Creative Credit & Copyright

Another resource I came across this week is iKEEPSAFE. This is a resource I will explore more for sure! Click on the "educators" section to find PD and curriculum resources for K-12.

Teaching Digital Citizenship is another resource I have found that provides lessons for grades 4-8 on the following topics:
~ Communication & Collaboration
~ Digital Citizenship
~ Privacy
~ Media Literacy
~ Cyberbullying
~Ethics/Copyright
~ Information Literacy

If you are in search of a game, check out Webonauts Internet Academy from PBS. Common Sense Media also have some great online learning resources for students in grades 3 and above.

Edutopia and  Edudemic also provide a list of resources K-12 teachers can use to discuss digital citizenship in the classroom next week!

Do you have any digital citizenship resources you plan to use next week? Share them with us!