MediaSmarts Tags - Digital Citizenship

Click here to view the full tip sheet (PDF).

Click here to view the full tip sheet (PDF).

Click here to view the full tip sheet (PDF).

Once you have a blog, what do you talk about?

There is a blog for any topic you can think of. For example, the MediaSmarts blog is a place for dialogue on media issues. The Canadian Journalism Project blog deals with journalism and Everybody Likes Sandwiches is a popular Canadian food blog.

There’s no doubt youth have embraced mobile technology: in Canada, young people ages 13 to 24 are the largest group of wireless phone users. Today’s cell phones are personal, palm-sized entertainment and social networking tools from which teens can play games, communicate, send messages, exchange information and share videos and images.

Level: Grades 10-12

Duration: 2 to 3 hours

Author: Jeff Gagnon, Media Education Specialist, MediaSmarts

Overview

While most interactions are positive, increasingly kids are using these communication tools to antagonize and intimidate others. According to a 2008 University of Toronto cyberbullying survey, nearly one in five Canadian students surveyed reported having been bullied online in the past three months.[1] An Alberta study found that one-third of students who had cyberbullied, had also been victims themselves.[2]

Click here to view the full tip sheet (PDF).

As well as invaluable tools for keeping in touch with our friends, families and our work, mobile devices have become an increasingly big part of how we access the Internet. Unfortunately, while many smartphones are nearly as powerful as computers, we often don’t use the same caution with them as we do with our computers—and they often don’t have the privacy and security safeguards that come built into computers. As well, the fact that we’re never far from our mobile devices can bring a host of opportunities for us to be distracted and to make poor choices.