PHS Recognized as Common Sense Media Certified School: Digital Citizenship
by Elizabeth Harris
In April 2017, Common Sense Media, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in a world of digital media and technology, recognized Pierce Jr./Sr. High School as a Certified School: Digital Citizenship.
The school started this process in the summer of 2016 by putting together a vision statement. Pierce Jr./Sr. High School’s vision statement for digital citizenship is, “Pierce High School strives to foster, a safe, disciplined, educational environment both offline and online, to provide an atmosphere for students where skills can be developed to become motivated, self-reliant, productive citizens. We realize the importance of being a good steward of technology, and it started with education. We make it a priority that all students receive digital citizenship instruction using the Common Sense Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Our goal is to foster good digital citizenship by being safe, responsible, and respectful with our technology.”
In order to become a digital citizenship school, all of the teachers of the Pierce High School staff had to take part in an online webinar about promoting appropriate online digital communication for students. Pierce Jr./Sr. this year has been using Common Sense Education’s research-based digital citizenship resources, which were created in collaboration with Dr. Howard Gardner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The curriculum and other resources are designed to teach students, educators, and parents tangible skills related to internet safety, protecting online reputations and personal privacy, respecting creative copyright, and managing online relationships. The school was required to teach a certain number of lessons on digital citizenship, including some on cyberbullying, digital footprints, and others to all students in grades 7-12. Becoming a digital citizenship school also required parent outreach. A family media agreement was sent home with each student at the beginning of the school year. The school provided tip sheets regarding online/digital communication to parents at parent-teacher conferences. Pierce Public Schools also placed a link on their website where families can get an additional information on the Common Sense website to help them and their teens manage the digital world. The free resources provided by Common Sense are currently being used in more than 90,000 classrooms nationwide.
Mary Birch, school counselor, said, “I feel very happy that our school has chosen to go this route because it’s an area where there is a great need for being responsible. We want our students to use technology safely and responsibly and to maximize their personal learning for using digital media. We are honored to be recognized as a Common Sense Digital Citizenship Certified School.”
