Digital Citizenship
Today , we all inhabit a world that undergoes a fast transformation as a result of digital technologies . Making sense of this new world and participating in it safely , critically and responsibly pose new challenges , attributes and behaviours . Thus , a new form of citizenship- Digital Citizenship- gains importance and this new form of citizenship embraces abilities that harness the benefits and opportunities that the digital world affords while building resilience to potential harms .
The Council of Europe defines Digital Citizenship as “ the ability to engage positively , critically and competently in the digital environment , drawing on the skills of effective communication and creation , to practice forms of social participation that are respectful of human rights and dignity through the responsible use of technology ”.
In this edition of CommitTED , we asked our students to consider the impact of Digital Citizenship on both their own lives and on society more generally . As ever , our students approached this task with a great deal of imagination , maturity and creativity . In this collection , you can see that they examined the phenomenon from a variety of different perspectives , including :
• Competencies for engaging with digital technologies while creating , working , sharing , socializing , investigating , playing , communicating and learning ,
• Participating actively and responsibly in local and global digital communities ,
• Political , economic , social , cultural and intercultural effects of Digital Citizenship ,
• Potential harms of digitalization ,
• Defending human dignity and ethics in the digital environment ,
• Promoting and protecting human rights , democracy and the rule of law in cyberspace ,
• General quality of an average citizen ’ s life in the new digital era ,
• The role of education for raising digitally literate citizens ,
• Artificial Intelligence , Augmented Reality , Metaverse , Second Life , and more- what will the world be like in the future ?
We do not , of course , know exactly what the future will bring . This collection does , however , give us some comfort that our students would not turn into passive observers or consumers of the wave of changes but they have the potential to become fully engaged , aware , responsible and proactive Digital Citizens of the future world .
From the Editorial Board