Digital Citizenship Inside Kindergarten

Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology(Ribble).What it means to a kindergarten class is that they need to understand that there are bad sites and people on the internet. This topic would need to be discussed carefully so that you do not scare the children away from using the internet or computers at all. Teachers should find videos that are useful in explaining the proper way to be safe on the internet. Here is a website that i found that had a good video explaing internet safety http://www.badguypatrol.ca/default.htm.
It is important to promote and teach Digital Citizenship to your students because they need to know what websites are safe to go on. Children need to know what is appropriate to put on the internet and who is an appropriate person to talk to online. Children should be aware of the dangers of the internet but also the fun the internet can be to use. Children should understand the nine themes of Digital Citizenship. 1.Digital Access             5.Digital Etiquette
                                               2.Digitail Commerce       6. Digital Law
                                               3.Digital Communication  7. Digital Rights and Respect
                                               4.Digital Literacy            8. Digital Health and Wellness
                                                                     9. Digital Security (Murray)
Issues that can arise in teaching Digital Citizenship to kindergarteners is that as teachers we can  overlook students and not realize what they are looking at online. Teachers need to monitor the websites being viewed by students not just in younger grades but older ones too. Students at young ages might not think what they are doing to viewing is dangerous and it is our jobs as educators to make sure they know what sites they should visit and to avoid pop ups.
Resources that teachers can use to promote Digital citizenship in the classroom are interactive games and cites that are good and to show or give an example of what is a bad site for them to visit. Explain to the students the difference between our community we live in and a digital community. Teachers can use videos such as http://thinkuknow.co.uk/5_7/hectorsworld/ to show the students videos about how to use the internet safely. 
I have created a prezi to show this information in a different way. This would be a good tool to use to teach about Digital Citizenship to your class. 

I found this information very useful. For more information of Digital Citizenship visit my Works Cited Page and click the links :)