Walden EDUC 6177 Week 7 Discussion Post - The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship

The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship:

This week we were asked to review the nine themes of digital citizenship and comment on the one that we feel is most important to us, based on our adult learning situation.  The nine themes are:

1.    Digital Access - The ability to access technology, opposite of digital exclusion.

2.    Digital Commerce - The electronic buying and selling of goods.

3.    Digital Communication - The Electronic exchange of information.

4.    Digital Literacy - The process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology.

5.    Digital Etiquette - Electronic standards of conduct or procedure.

6.    Digital Law - Electronic responsibility for actions and deeds.      

7.    Digital Rights and Responsibilities - Those freedoms extended to everyone in the digital world.

8.    Digital Health and Wellness - Physical and psychological wellbeing in a digital world.

9.    Digital Self-Protection - Electronic precautions to guarantee safety.  

Of the nine themes presented here, Digital Access is the one that I feel needs the most attention in my particular adult learning environment.  Digital access refers to one’s access to technology and the ability to use that technology as much as the next person.  I work in an organization that does overhaul maintenance on aircraft.  The workforce is composed of mechanics and support personnel, such as payroll and management.  The majority of the workforce is mechanics, who tend to work on the flightline (outdoors or in large hangers that house large aircraft).  The mechanics do not have routine access to computers during the workday.  The support personnel routinely do their work on computers and have access to technology all day long.  This can result in a form of “digital exclusion” that could potentially negatively impact the blue-collar workers, and organization as a whole.

A recent example of how digital exclusion could have been an issue is when the organization recently modified their promotion policy to place increased emphasis on the employee’s résumé.  Policy was formulated that required certain information be included on the résumé and in a certain format.  Support workers could make time at work to update their résumés while technicians and mechanics could not.  To help prevent digital exclusion, management arranged for the use of several computer labs and other facilities with accessible computers and utilized the Training Scheduling System (TSS) to schedule time for the blue-collar workforce to have access to a computer and receive some training on the new résumé requirements.

Another example of the organization overcoming limited access to digital technology for the workforce deals directly with my position in the Training Office.  There are several subjects of required training that every member of the workforce must take annually.  With only limited access to computers, mechanics and technicians would have to leave the jobsite and travel to computer labs to receive computer based training.  This adversely affected the production of the organization because much of the work done by mechanics and technicians is done by teams.  When even one member of a team is out, the effectiveness of the work process is reduced.  To reduce the downtime, the organization instituted mass training sessions where all the members of many teams gathered in an auditorium and viewed the training on a big screen.      

While these examples highlights the organization’s attempt at good digital citizenry, the potential for limited digital access and possible digital exclusion still exists for the portion of the workforce that works outdoors, in hangars, and on aircraft.  It is simply the nature of the work.  Management must remain vigilant to increase access and decrease exclusion whenever possible.

If I could modify these nine themes I would add a section about digital information protection.  Many of us have heard the recent news stories of Sony’s email servers being hacked and sensitive emails being released to the public domain.  As a government worker I was recently notified that millions of names and other personal information were stolen by hackers.  I believe good digital citizenship should include a heavy emphasis on protecting personally identifiable information for people associated with organizations.   

                

          

Ribble, M. (n.d.). Nine elements: Nine themes of digital citizenship. Retrieved     May 30, 2012, from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html