Teaching Digital Citizenship with Bookopolis – Lesson #1

Students are spending increasingly more time using tech inside – and outside – of the classroom. Teaching “digital citizenship” skills or how to interact positively online is becoming critical for elementary and middle schoolers.

Here are a few specific ways that Bookopolis can be used to teach and reinforce good digital citizenship lessons.

Lesson #1: Writing for the Public: What to Include and Not Include?

Learning how to write for a public audience, especially when you are hidden behind the anonymity of a username, is a needed skill in our tech-centered world where leaving comments on Yelp or Fandango or replying to a friend’s Instagram feed is a daily activity for many teens and tweens.

How Bookopolis can Reinforce this Lesson:

In Bookopolis, all book reviews can be viewed and enjoyed by anyone in the world. That’s part of the fun and value of our kid-centric platform.

Encourage students to share their voice online but do NOT include personal information such as your full name, phone number, address, friends’ names, school name, or other info that could identify them. And, of course, writing inappropriate or silly messages reflects negatively back on the student. Have a dialogue with students about how their online words and actions are like a “digital tattoo.” What might seem funny in a moment can stick to you for a very long time.

Since we moderate and approve all student reviews before they can be seen publicly (that is, outside of your class or group of Bookopolis “friends), writing reviews is a great way for students to safely practice how to write for a public audience. If they make a mistake, we will notify you and not allow that review to be seen publicly. You can then create a dialogue about what is appropriate and have private conversations with students to reinforce this digital citizenship lesson.