Standard 5 Brief Paper

Clayton S. Cook

Standard 5 of the NETS-A focuses on digital citizenship and states that Educational
Administrators model and facilitate understanding of social, ethical and legal issues and
responsibilities related to an evolving digital culture. This is an extremely important standard as
digital citizenship is on the forefront of technology in education today. With todays digital
world flooding our classrooms it is imperative that digital citizenship be a top priority. This is
something that my administrator knows is important and something that she takes seriously in
our school.
She begins this task by ensuring that all students at our school have equitable access to
appropriate digital tools and resources, and that the students are instructed on how to use those
resources. While this is a difficult task she has a plan she follows. Currently, each grade level
has access to a laptop cart stocked with 24 laptops. However, she leaves it up each individual
grade level as to how they will handle to use of the laptops. Some grade levels use the carts on a
rotating basis and others divide the laptops up among the classes for use during small group time.
Whatever choice is made, each student has equal access to them. This can be monitored in
several ways, but the most common is simply looking at how much time each student spends on
the software MobyMax. This is also an area that is discussed during School Improvement
Council meetings and High-Performance Partnership meetings with community members.
Indicator 2 is an area in which she admits that she follows what the district office funnels
down. Georgetown County School District has an Acceptable Use Policy for students and
teachers and the guidelines contained therein are what is to be followed. However, Mrs. Stuckey
does acknowledge that she has not given much consideration to outlining a policy specifically for
Maryville that accompanies the district Acceptable Use Policy. She does, however, ensure to the

best of her abilities that the district policy is enforced by teachers and followed by students. Any
infraction is handled immediately.
Indicator 3 deals with social interactions using technology. This can be defined in a few
way but to her it means any type of social media, all the way down to email. While the vast
majority of social media is not allowed in the school setting, there are a few that are. For
example, Edmodo, which can be viewed as a variation of social media, is widely use in our
school. Many times we, the teachers and school administrators, are the only direction these
children receive concerning this topic. Since this is the case, we must take digital citizenship as
seriously as we do other areas of education. Because of this, and Mrs. Stuckeys adamant stance
on digital citizenship, a few of the teachers use Common Sense Media as a guide to teaching
digital citizenship. A few years ago, I became the first and only certified Common Sense Media
educator at our school. Since achieving this, I have co-taught several lessons on digital
citizenship and ethics and have led sessions on the importance of educating our students in these
areas.
Indicator 4 is also an area in which Mrs. Stuckey is not completely comfortable with.
While she understands what it is stating, she is unsure about how to approach it. With tools such
as Skype and Google Classroom, ideas can be shared across the world in a matter of seconds.
She understands that with this ability comes great responsibility that falls directly in the laps of
the school and the educators. She stresses to teachers before the beginning of school, as well as
several times throughout the year, that if we choose to incorporate a tool like Skype, we must be
sure we are fully aware of what can arise. She feels that the stigma surrounding Skype is a large
contributor to the reason why not many teachers in our school attempt to use tools that can reach
global audiences. She said, and she is exactly right, that our teachers are comfortable with tools

like email and do not want to venture out beyond their comfort zones. She said that this is an
area in which she must, as an administrator, strive to help teachers overcome.
Overall, Mrs. Stuckey does an adequate job of meeting Standard 5: Digital Citizenship.
There are a few areas in which she acknowledges that she needs to improve but, much like those
she leads, she is up for the task.