The Digital Citizenship Summit is proud to announce our partnership with Living Online Lab. As the 501c3 organization states, they are “Bringing Internet Studies to the Internet Generation.”
A major focus for the Digital Citizenship Summit is increasing quality education that students receive concerning tech use and their life online. To that end, Living Online Lab is an innovative program that seeks to increase the overall understanding of the Internet, how it works, and how it can be used. You may have read the widely-discussed article about digital citizenship in The Atlantic (“Digital Natives, But Strangers to the Web” April 2015), which spotlighted Living Online Lab and its founder, Reuben Loewy.
Loewy is also a speaker at this year’s Digital Citizenship Summit. Read his piece, Who’s Teaching the Digital Revolution?, and don’t forget to register for the Digital Citizenship Summit, happening October 3rd at the University of Saint Joseph (West Hartford, CT).
Who’s Teaching the Digital Revolution_ by Reuben Loewy
Living Online Lab considers Internet literacy to be an essential skill to thrive in today’s increasingly complex and online world. Our mission is to develop this literacy through promoting Internet Studies in schools worldwide. Internet Studies is an interdisciplinary field examining the social, psychological, economic, political, technical, cultural, artistic, and other dimensions of the Internet and digital society. Knowledgeable and sophisticated users of the Internet will be better equipped to navigate and help shape the digital world.
Living Online Lab aims to achieve this by:
Developing, distributing and promoting (via a dedicated website) an interdisciplinary K-12+ curriculum with accompanying lesson plans and supporting multimedia material.
Promoting Internet Studies in schools, school districts and educational communities in the U.S.A. and internationally (via workshops, webinars, social and conventional media, pilot programs, conferences etc.)
Creating a worldwide network of educators and researchers to provide professional development and pedagogical support, and secure ongoing public and private support for Internet Studies.
Stimulating youth to take an informed and active interest in shaping the Internet ecosystem and digital world.
The idea for Living Online lab was conceived by Reuben Loewy, a former foreign correspondent who now teaches at independent schools in Princeton, NJ. Reuben’s experience in the classroom, and at home raising two children, proved to him that – contrary to common perception – today’s youth (the so-called “digital natives”), only have a superficial knowledge of the Internet and the digital world. This is also borne out by leading Internet researchers (Pew, dana boyd et al.)
Schools, meanwhile, are eagerly introducing technology in the classroom. Last year, the market for desktop, laptop, tablets and two-in-one computers shipped to kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools and institutions of higher education in the United States amounted to $7 billion, according to estimates from IDC. When it comes to teaching students about the Internet, however, schools continue to primarily teach conventional computer science. Some schools are now sporadically adding lessons to warn their students of the dangers of the Internet, and social media in particular (identity theft, digital footprints, cyberbullying, sexting, doxxing etc.)
Living Online Lab acknowledges the dangers and potential downsides of students’ online activities, but takes a different approach. We believe that a more holistic and sophisticated knowledge of the Internet and our digital world not only minimizes these dangers, but is also crucial to success for youth in the 21st century. A growing number of leading voices in the educational world support this approach. However, the introduction of Internet Studies in our schools is primarily being held back by the absence of curricular material, a lack of professional development and support for faculty, and a disproportionate emphasis on the perils of the Internet.
To address this, Living Online has developed an interdisciplinary curriculum that has been successfully piloted in grades 7-12 since 2012. This curriculum is a living document, constantly evolving not only to reflect the changing digital world, but also the generous input Living Online Lab continues to receive from a sizable community of teachers, students, academics and others with interest in supporting our drive to promote Internet Studies.
Feedback from the educational community, along with our own research, confirms two key facts:
a) There is a substantial demand in the teaching community for a curriculum to “teach the Internet,” and
b) There is no competition to what Living Online Lab is doing/proposing.
Where do we go from here?
The next step for Living Online Lab is to develop lesson plans to accompany the Living Online curriculum, and build an online platform via which these lesson plans and supporting material can be delivered. Possible models for this step include Common Sense Media (www.commonsensemedia.org) and iCivics (www.iCivics.org).
In parallel, Living Online will continue to build its global support network and campaign to promote the introduction of Internet Studies in our schools.
Digital Citizenship Summit 
Thanks for this great post about the terrific work Reuben Loewy is doing to try to educate students about the digital world. Thanks also for mentioning Cyber Civics, the middle school digital media program and Cyberwise.org… however I did want to set the record straight that in no way can any of the Cyber Civics lessons be considered “stranger danger” lessons as you say. On the other hand, much like your plan for lessons, we teach students how to be wise and competent users of digital tools by knowing how to manage their digital footprints, becoming upstanders to cruelty online, using online tools to be confident media participants, avoiding plagiarism, understanding online privacy policies, and so much more. You are right, there is a demand for these kind of positive lessons and we are proud to have nearly 200 teachers around the U.S. teaching these Cyber Civics lessons this year.
LikeLike