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Digital Citizenship and Gaming are popular topics, and for good reason. Kids are spending more and more time online, playing video games and using social media. A major problem with kids being online so much has to do with digital citizenship. Digital citizenship refers to engaging in appropriate, responsible and respectful ways through technology.

Coder Kids recently recorded a podcast about this topic. You can watch the entire podcast below.

Why Should We Be Concerned With Gaming and Digital Citizenship?

Digital citizenship can be compared to sportsmanship. Sometimes in sports crazy things can happen. That can also happen with gaming. Voice and text chats in gaming can easily turn into bullying, so you want to be aware of what your child is reading, hearing and seeing. Kids can be exposed to graphics, comments, or texts that are really beautiful and inspiring, but some that could be terrible and depressing. It’s important to know what is going on with your child online, as well as prepare them to navigate a digital world, that can sometimes be an unfriendly place.

Teaching Digital Citizenship

We love a website called commonsense.org as a way to teach and talk to kids about digital citizenship. They have 6 different categories they go over in their curriculum:

• Media Balance and Well Being

• Privacy and Security

• Digital Footprint and Identity

• Relationships and Communication

• Cyberbullying, Digital Drama and Hate Speech

• News and Media Literacy

Let’s take a closer look at each of these categories, why they’re important and how they relate to gaming.

Media Balance and Well-Being

This refers to the fact that we shouldn’t be using screens and technology all day, everyday. There are great things to do online and offline, and we need to find a healthy balance for ourselves and for our kids. Gaming is a great way to improve creativity, problem solving, teamwork, etc., but kids can learn these through other activities and they can also develop other important traits through offline activities.

Privacy and Security

The best way to protect your child is to have them play online with the same people you would allow them to play with offline. Privacy and security are easier to monitor if you know the other children and their parents and can easily contact them.

Another way to protect your child’s privacy and security is to be sure they are not using their real name in their username for games. On some platforms, like Scratch, personal messaging is not allowed. However, for the platforms that do allow private messaging, as a parent, you should have access to their login details so that you can look over the chats and messages.

It’s also important to teach kids how to use chat and private messages appropriately. They shouldn’t be giving out their person details and contact information through chats or private messages.

Digital Footprint and Identity

It’s important to remember that the internet is a permanent database of everything we share and it’s not as anonymous as we think. Online sharing can be damaging now and in the future. Different gaming platforms store information differently, but they are still not anonymous.

While you can be anyone you want to be online, it’s most rewarding when you are fully yourself. While you might be angry about something, it’s ok to be angry, but not ok to troll and bully people online.

Having an evolving converstion with your child as they get older about what they can and cannot share and post about themselves online will help them be comfortable with their digital footprint and identity now and in the future.

Relationships and Communication

What is the appropriate way to communicate with others online, especially in gaming? We focus on teaching kids to use clean and clear communication online.

Clean communication means we’re not insulting others, not blaming others, and we’re not using mean or hateful words. Clear communications refers to being specific and concise in their communications with others. This is important for gaming because things can get confusing when there are a group of people playing together.

Tone is also important to think about when you are communicating online with others. A small tweak in tone can make the game a more friendly place for each participant.

In our Digital Citizenship and Leadership classes, we give kids opporunities to be both a leader and a follower while gaming. By being the leader kids learn how to implement clean and concise communication, how to get imput from others and how to make proper goals for the game.

Cyberbullying, Digital Drama and Hate Speech

It i vital to teach kids that bullying in real life and online is UNACCEPTABLE. In gaming, you can be nice and still do well. Sometimes people think they have to yell everytime something goes wrong, but this hurts team cohesion. Teams who respect and value each other perform better.

Kids should take an active role to promote positivity online. By learning about cyberbullying and hate speech, kids can learn about bringing peace to a situation and stop it before it escalates. Kids can take a mentorship role to help others who are struggling. If others don’t respond in an appropriate way, they can always be blocked.

News and Media Literacy

Although this doesn’t relate directly to gaming, it’s still an important part of digital citizenship. This refers to identifying credible and trustworthing news sources and reflecting on your responsibility as a media creator and consumer. One way to do this is to teach kids to ask questions about what they read and to be genuinely thoughtful about the media source.

It’s also important to be thoughtful about the video games you play, when you play them and how you play them.

Conclusion

Digital Citizenship and Gaming are important topics for parents and kids to learn about. At Coder Kids, we are making a strong effort to teach kids about digital citizenship through gaming and all of our coding classes as well. When kids learn about digital citizenship and how to participate online appropriately, they will have a better experience and learn a life skill they’ll need now and in the future.

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