Character Education for the Digital Age
“Should we teach our children as though they have two lives, or one?”That’s the question Jason Ohler poses in “Character Education for the Digital Age.”
Current policy norms—blocking large portions of the Internet in schools or fragmented, case-by-case approaches to cyberbullying and inappropriate online activities—treat students as if they live two lives: a traditional, digitally unplugged life at school, and a digitally infused life outside school.
We’re missing an enormous opportunity to help students live one integrated life by not using school as a forum to teach digital citizenship, Ohler asserts.
In her interview in the same issue of EL, director of the U.S. Office of Educational Technology, Karen Cator, emphasizes digital citizenship:
“The ability of people to live in a globally networked society depends on developing a sense of personal responsibility and applying it online, just like offline. . . . For example, it’s really important that students understand that their voice is amplified and persistent when it’s online.”Ohler recommends students study and question technology’s role in their lives. He asks how a school district might behave differently with this goal in place: “Students will study the personal, social, and environmental impacts of every technology and media application they use in school.”