Charles Wright's Digital Citizenship Curriculum Highlighted on KIRO Radio

Charles Wright Technology Coordinator Holly Gerla and two freshmen in her Upper School digital citizenship class were invited to speak about the curriculum on the February 26 episode of the Jason Rantz show on KIRO Radio.

Ms. Gerla, Wyatt Swift, and Annie White discussed what they cover in class (which is cotaught by Jane Riches), from terms of use policies to anonymous commenting to conscientiously building a respectable digital footprint online. “Our digital citizenship class is part of our ninth grade seminar,” Ms. Gerla said. “It is a class that is designed for us to have a chance to talk to kids specifically about how they behave in the digital world, how to navigate the digital world as they’re coming of age, and what they need to be doing in terms of making good decisions for themselves.”

Their visit to the KIRO Radio studio was at least partially in response to a segment that aired on the Jason Rantz show on February 13 in which he lamented the exploits of local teens on Twitter accounts that shared graphic behavior. They were  “so vile and so sexually graphic that even I, as a 31-year-old adult, was getting really, really uncomfortable,” Mr. Rantz said on air at the time. He then quoted several heavily censored quotes from one of the Twitter accounts in an attempt to highlight the explicit nature of the online commentary. “I think it’s probably a little bit off to say kids don’t know how to use social media—hey do, very well, probably better than I do, even,” Ms. Gerla said. “But what we have as adults in their lives is the wisdom to help them make better decisions, to use it responsibly, and to use it in a way that actually has them contributing positively to our digital world.”

Students who complete the CWA digital citizenship course are likely to be savvier than their peers—and many adults—in using not just social media but also the Internet in general. “Out of this class I’ve gotten a lot of knowledge—especially with privacy policies,” Wyatt said. “It surprised me. One student in class Googled his name, and pictures of him came up. It was really eye-opening.”
And as students engaged in a rigorous liberal arts program, they quickly realized that the digital citizenship lessons are applicable in other subjects as well—and have influenced how they plan for their academic future. “We did a chapter on copyright that was really interesting,” Annie said. “It’s such a slippery slope—what’s OK to take out of a book or what’s OK to put in quotes in an essay. Plagiarism is such a serious issue, and it’s in our honor code at our school and obviously something you don’t do. But I feel like in some situations you don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. So it was really nice to have a direct class where we could talk openly about it and ask questions.”

The digital citizenship class recently posted the second batch of blog posts that are part of their work; you can read them here. For further resources and tips for working with your kids to be responsible digital citizens, visit Ethics 4 A Digital World, a blog managed by Ms. Gerla and CWA Middle School Librarian Sam Harris. You can listen to the full interview here.