One of the advantages of working at a Christian school is our ability to be able to integrate faith into our curriculum. One example of this is the infographic below. Much of what we expect in our students’ online behavior is based on the qualities of good character and ethics. So in essence, digital citizenship is character education.

My generation tends to see a distinct line separating our real lives and our online lives.  For our students, that line is much more blurry. Their online world experiences are blended with their real world. Their interactions with their friends and classmates cross-over between the digital and the face-to-face.  As a teacher it’s easy to make a distinction between classroom behavior and online behavior, but when you stop and think about it, isn’t it all just “behavior”?  Stealing is stealing, whether it’s shoplifting a candy bar from the liquor store, or downloading a copyrighted movie from Bittorrent. Bullying is bullying, whether it’s on the playground or in a text message.

When I created the infographic below, my goal was to take our current online behavior agreement (Word doc link) and make something that could be posted in classrooms and referred to daily as teachers and students work and interact online. The intention is to make Digital Citizenship something that is emphasized and modeled in all classrooms, rather than a subject that is only taught in the computer lab.

If you would like a higher resolution copy for viewing or printing…

• Here is a link to a PDF of this infographic.
• Here is a link to a generic PDF with our school logo removed if you want to insert your own.

Feel free to use it, share it, or modify it to meet your needs.