The Power of Respect

I am so proud of my students for how they practise good digital citizenship. We were lucky enough to have Susan Watt (@susanwatt) come to our classroom in the fall to teach us about the respectful use of other people's intellectual materials, and how important it is to give credit where due. My students in grades 4/5 are now compiling images for an art/Keynote assignment and are automatically seeking out "labeled for reuse" images and recording the URLs in their slideshows to give attribution. Even if the idea of plagiarism is incomprehensible at this age, it still makes me proud to see that the kids realize that someone else prepared this material for them, so simply learning how to give credit teaches them respect for other users and contributors on the net. To other elementary teachers out there: please know that students in grades 4 and up (in my personal experience) can truly comprehend the value and importance of being honest, and of giving attribution to their sources when required. I hope that when these same students arrive in college or university courses this will be as automatic as blinking. I can proudly say, Lesson Learned.