A recent opinion piece in Education Week sums up the issues surrounding cell phones in schools quite well. Tom Moore, a high school IB teacher in New York City, wrote that the recent push to ban cell phones is really an attempt to find a simple answer to a much larger, more important issue: student mental health. Mr. Moore correctly points out that at its heart, the cell phone debate is really about our desire to protect students and give them a safe learning place where they feel listened to and validated.

This debate is a great backdrop for talking about Digital Citizenship and the elements that teach our students how to respect themselves and others via the technology they encounter every day. In several of my books, I have written at length about digital citizenship and nurturing it through a district technology plan, but here are some of the most essential elements and why they matter.

Students need to respect school policies and the people who enforce the rules and consequences.

Respecting school policies about technology use on either personal devices or school devices is the first step in good Digital Citizenship. Regardless of whether personal phones are banned completely or relegated to the pocket hanger at the front of the classroom, having a device in the classroom is a privilege completely controlled by the teacher, and teachers need the support of their administrators with solid rules and the ability to enforce them.

This puts the onus on the teachers and administrators to not only be clear about how and when tech devices can be used, but equally clear about what those consequences will be for violations of the rules. Being inconsistent or lax weakens the teacher’s authority and makes it much harder to enforce the rules, and those rules and students’ compliance are the heart of nurturing a good digital citizenship environment.

Students often need help to stay on task when using technology.

If a phone or smartwatch is in a student's possession during class, they are eventually going to lose focus. When that happens, their learning suffers and so does their classmates’. In all fairness, even adults have difficulty staying on task when a phone is in their hand. It is so easy and immediately gratifying to move away from a “task” to something more enjoyable and less weighty like replying to text messages or skimming through TikTok.

This potential for distraction is a major reason why most teachers require students to leave their devices at the door of the classroom. But the same temptation exists when using school devices, so each one should be part of a schoolwide deployment of classroom management software. With it, teachers can redirect students who are wandering because the teacher has a snapshot view of every student’s device. They also have the ability to control the tech, any software on the computer, and the websites it can access. A teacher can lock down individuals or groups of students without having to call anyone out or leave their desktop.

There are more than punitive controls, too. Teachers can easily send an encouraging note or emoji to a student recognizing them for being on task or doing good work. Or, they can send encouraging words to those who are struggling, giving guidance to help to get them moving forward without drawing undue attention to any particular individual. It’s a model of positive reinforcement that goes well beyond simply using devices, and it’s a powerful motivator.

Students need to demonstrate respect for school-owned devices and be good stewards.

Most students take good care of their personal phone and computers. If they bought it themselves or it was a long awaited gift, it usually only takes one expensive repair using their own hard-earned money to be more vigilant about its care. The trick here is to establish that same standard of care and device stewardship for school devices. Students need to protect those devices from breakage, loss, and unauthorized use.

Students should know the school’s policies for technology loss and breakage. And they should know how and when they may use their own devices during school hours, breaks, or during class. They and their caregiver need to sign those policies and frequently be reminded of the consequences for not demonstrating good care.

Students need to be critical consumers of information and recognize that misinformation and disinformation exists en masse.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell fact from fiction on the internet. A late 2023 Pew Research Center survey reports that about a third of young adults regularly get their news from TikTok, which is an alarming statistic suggesting that in the future, information will be less and less mediated. This puts more responsibility on teachers to constantly remind students to read with a critical eye, and to always verify the source of information.

Students do learn progressively more about primary and secondary sources as they go through their school years, but they need frequent reminders to critically view content. They also need specific lessons to teach this concept, including how to vet sources. This article in the New York Times provides lessons for teaching media literacy and critical consumption of information. Media Wise Teen Fact-Checking Network is a network of teens who verify information and FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center is another site to bookmark for sussing out false claims.

Students need to realize that their digital footprint lives forever on the internet.

Another critical element of good digital citizenship is understanding that anything that makes its way to the internet lives there forever. Everyone needs to be reminded that there is no way to purge a photograph or their email address and phone number from the web. With archives, backups, and vast amounts of data being produced every second, nothing can be completely wiped.

We’ve also heard a sage adult say “never write anything down that you wouldn’t want anyone or everyone else to see.” The same principle applies to the internet and nowadays this isn’t limited to words in a letter or a note passed from hand to hand. Now an unseen observer can snap a photo, take video, or record a conversation to post on the internet. It's possible to make deep fakes appear to be someone else talking. Students need to understand this danger to protect themselves.

Teach students to limit what they share like addresses, phone numbers, and personal details. Instill the premise that less is more with regards to personal info. Do not share details about other people either. Manage social media privacy settings and keep profiles private, limited to only people that have been approved. Simply having a student Google their own name is a valuable lesson to see what already exists and that most likely was never authorized by them.

In the 30 years and countless number of teachers our company has worked with, we are increasingly in awe of how much teachers have to juggle, and their amazing ability to adapt to the demands of their jobs. That is one of the key reasons NetSupport tools exist: to pull the burden of managing tech off of teachers’ plates, letting them get back to teaching and one-on-one time with their students. Over the years, we’ve expanded the definition for “digital citizenship” to include not only the physical acts of good stewardship and staying on task, respecting the rules, and media literacy, but also the personal elements of respecting self and others. For a great discussion about digital citizenship join our NetSupport webinar Navigating Social Media Challenges and Opportunities in Education (livecast or recording) or explore the additional resources on NetSupport’s page on Digital Citizenship.

About the author

Al Kingsley is the CEO of NetSupport. He is an author, chair of Multi Academy Trust cluster of schools in the UK, an Apprenticeship Ambassador, and chair of his regional Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Board. A 30-year veteran in the sector he has written books on edtech, school governance, and school growth.