The Digital Citizenship Handbook for School Leaders

Fostering Positive Interactions Online

By Mike Ribble and Marty Park

ISBN: 9781564847829

Published: June 2019

Length: 320 pages

Table of Contents

Read excerpt

Interview with author on BAM Radio

Learn how to develop a meaningful approach to embedding digital citizenship into an established program, helping your students succeed in a digital world. 

In today’s schools and districts, just saying “no” to bad technology practices is not enough. This leadership posture can take the form of extreme blocking and filtering of websites, providing little access to devices and declining to integrate digital tools and resources into learning out of fear of what else a student might do. Such a mindset can also lead to adults choosing not to engage -- or being unable to engage -- in conversations when students share stories about what a peer did online or through the latest app. 

Digital citizenship curriculum needs to be taught at two levels at once -- horizontal (the world immediately around students) and vertical (connecting to the rest of the world). This book provides education leaders a strategic road map that demonstrates how to incorporate these concepts into the curriculum so that digital citizenship isn’t just “one more thing,” but is threaded into the DNA of how educators teach and work. 

The book:

• Provides a five-year-plan for developing a digital citizenship program in your school.
• Covers such topics as digital ethics and leveled approaches to digital citizenship. 
• Walks through the digital citizenship responsibilities and opportunities inherent in various roles, including library media specialists, classroom educators and special ed teachers.
• Offers strategies for spreading digital citizenship internationally and explores the future of digital citizenship.

The book offers school and district leaders a path toward a shared and collective understanding so that digital citizenship is embedded in the way students and educators interact with technology and each other. It is a guide for school communities to discover which practices, in the end, will lead to better people.

Audience: K-12 educators, education leaders

About the Authors

Mike Ribble (@digcitizen) is the author of three editions of Digital Citizenship in Schools. Ribble has served as a classroom teacher, a secondary school administrator, a network manager and a university instructor. His nine elements of digital citizenship have informed audiences around the world and inspired dialogue around responsible technology use. He has presented at national and international conferences, and helped form the ISTE Digital Citizenship PLN. He offers resources for teaching digital citizenship on his website (digitalcitizenship.org).

Marty Park, Ed.D. (@martypark), is the chief digital officer with the Kentucky Department of Education where he focuses on strategic implementations and experience design of emerging technologies for learning. He previously served as a regional education technology leader for the department and, prior to that, was the chief information officer and district technology coordinator for one of Kentucky’s largest school districts. Park also consults on federal and state programs and is a frequent speaker at international, national and statewide events. He’s an adjunct professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, and an innovation fellow for the Digital Learning Design Lab.