Digital Citizen Pledge
September 28, 2021 | Chloe Ko
The fifth graders have brainstormed, drafted, and published a Digital Citizen Pledge aka the Technology Agreement as a class community last week.
But before we called it a Digital Citizen Pledge, we spent a lot of discussing what a digital citizen is and the skills a digital citizen needs to create a safe, online community.
We discussed “mindful messaging” and how people cannot see our facial expressions and hear our tones when sending messages and emails. We had some fun with creating disrespectful messages and turning them into respectful messages, to practice using kind language.
We also defined and discussed cyberbullying and how that affects our class community. And what to do when we witness it: disengage and tell an adult.
Lastly, we talked about why we should keep personal information to ourselves. Sometimes, our students may meet new people online, outside of our community. It’s important that our students know how to stay safe in the digital world as they continue to engage.
After all of the discussions, the fifth graders came up with the pledge, making a promise to care for ourselves and others and to be safe online.
To help us remember the pledge, we came up with a motto:
We have the COTSS: computer, on task, safety skills
“We have the COTSS! We have the COTSS!”
