Situating Citizenship Online:

Digital Citizenship in the Context of the Cyber Life Framework

Authors

Keywords:

citizenship, Cyber Life Framework, cyber safety, cybersecurity,                               digital citizenship, education, information literacy, technology skills

Abstract

Coming to understand technology in schools—its educational uses and larger implications—has often been an ad hoc endeavor. Approaches to technology often have been reactive. The broader context of technology reactiveness plays out beyond school walls. Indeed, Helberg (2021) argues there exists a grey war in which autocratic regimes actively fight democracies for control of the world-wide technology infrastructure and the political and economic realities such control would allow them to influence. In that grey war, Helberg (2021) argues democracies are not proactively addressing the threats posed by autocracies. How education systems create cultures around technology has the potential to impact the approaches democracies take regarding the broader context of technology. This paper introduces the Cyber Life Framework. Built on three touchpoints of information literacy, technology skills, and cybersecurity & cyber safety, the framework is a guide for schools and school systems to proactively create a culture of online responsibility. Once the framework is introduced, particular attention is paid to aspects of digital citizenship implicated by the framework.

            Keywords: citizenship, Cyber Life Framework, cyber safety, cybersecurity,

                              digital citizenship, education, information literacy, technology skills

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Published

2022-06-30