Protect Yourself, Protect Others

As a teacher, I want to reflect on their media consumption and media production in order to monitor if their are hurting others or themselves. I think this is the biggest benefit of reflection: students learn to think about the what they've learned from an activity but also, and perhaps more importantly, they learn to think about the consequences of their media choices.

In terms of media consumption, there are many things that we need to do to help students to "protect" themselves. We have to teach students how to determine credibility, how to be critical, and not to always take things for face value. When researching, students need to look for credible sources; when making purchases, students need to know how to not be swindled; when listening to/viewing advertisements, students need to know how to process the information being thrown at them. When we show media in the classroom, we need to be sure that we pick media that is truly beneficial, and will not be extremely upsetting to students. These are our responsibilities concerning our students. We also have a responsibility to the community and school administrators to keep them updated on our media use and production. The more informed everyone is, the more understanding there is with regards to using/teaching media in the classroom.

In terms of media production, we need to teach students how to protect themselves AND "protect" others. Hobbs talks about the issues that come with "self disclosure" and how some teens might be too uninhibited online. We do indeed need to teach students to share information responsibly on the Internet, and we also need to teach the responsibility that comes with anonymity on the Internet. I've heard of cases where students harass each other or teachers  but they can't be identified because they use an alternate identity or a screen name. With the Internet (potentially) comes a new identity (i.e. Hobbs' son, Roger) and we need to teach the morals of such new identities - we need to treat others with respect regardless of who we are online. When I use a classroom blog and/or Facebook page in my class, I plan on assigning my students "secret identities" - these will help students to be able to share freely and will protect students from others online, but because I know the secret identities, I can hold students accountable for their actions online. I hope that this method will set the example for Internet interactions - protect yourself and protect others.

In terms of protecting others, I was interested in Hobbs' comments on "relational aggression" and the various disturbing YouTube videos she described. I was horrified by the animal abuse videos described and saddened by the pranks and scare videos that I read about. At the end of Chapter 6, Hobbs talks about how we shouldn't make our students feel guilty about their media choices, as this will only make them resistant to what we are saying, and we should teach them "critical autonomy." I feel this is a critical element of successfully teaching proper digital citizenship, but I was unsure as to how exactly I should do this. Thankfully, this question was answered in the next chapter, when Hobbs talked about the "Ethics of Representation." Of specific note was the "ethical triangle" (Figure 7.2) and the questions that the author should ask him/herself about Intentionality, Consequences, and Social Good. I think that as I teach my students to reflect on these elements of their media use/consumption, they will become the good digital citizen that both Hobbs and myself want them to be, without ostracizing or alienating this fragile group of human beings.