A review of initiatives using technology to promote cyber-safety and digital citizenship
Date
2013
Authors
Spears, B.A.
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Journal article
Citation
2013; 188-203
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Abstract
Technology has rapidly become central to young people’s socializing and communication strategies across the globe. Aligning with this progression, governments, non-government bodies, not-for-profit organizations and individuals world-wide have collaboratively and independently, expended increasingly significant time and resources on ensuring young people are adequately educated and prepared for life in a technologically wired society. Keeping young people safe online through cyber-safety education and supporting them to develop into ethical, digital citizens, where they can successfully navigate a rapidly changing technological environment, are two different sides of the same coin. This chapter outlines the cyber-safety initiatives undertaken in Australia over the past decade, as they have shifted from paper-based to CD-ROM to online, interactive websites in concert with the shifts in daily technology use. It considers digital citizenship as a construct, with a view to understanding how both of these approaches may contribute to positive uses of technology and safer relationships on and offline.