Over the past several years, social media has become a disruptive force in the American political process. Yes, it promotes discussion, facilitates productive communication, and enables small groups of like-minded people to broadly share their message.

However, it has also been force of destruction. By filtering sources that align with our belief systems, we less frequently challenge ourselves with ideas that are different than our own. More destructive than filtering the news we receive is that we filter our friendships. The end result is that dogma is re-enforced and our sense of respect for those with differing ideas is weakened.

The good news is that K-12 education is developing a toolkit of student strategies for digital citizenship skills that incorporate the benefits and challenges of social media use. Organizations like Common Sense Media (https://www.commonsense.org/education/) and ISTE (https://www.iste.org) have released helpful resources that take a proactive approach toward digital citizenship and emphasize the following qualities of effective digital citizenship instruction:

1. Sequenced: Establishing a K-12 sequence of skills that enables students to build and reinforce skills from year to year. Common Sense Media has published their own sequence based on the work of  Dr. Howard Gardner and the Good Play Project at Harvard University
2. Pro-active: Take a positive and productive approach to technology rather than attempting to shield students from it. Students should be empowered so they understand how others are able to leverage technology for good and bad.
3. Interdisciplinary: Technology education is most effective when it is integrated with academic classes that reinforce its importance. Students should be talking about digital citizenships in English, Social Studies, and other classes throughout the day.
4. Inclusive: We need to be sure that our work around digital citizenship is reaching every student. Lessons should incorporate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) so that no child misses out on these essential concepts.
5. Expansive: Parents need not only to be kept in the loop, but accepted all full partners in our schools’ efforts at digital citizenship. Ideas about appropriate online behavior must be reinforced at home for them to be effective.

The next real challenge is to translate these concepts into a program of professional development for adults. Our local government officials can take the lead by embracing social media as a platform for sharing information and collecting community feedback – and by modeling best practices in appropriate online behavior. We should also develop adult education courses that are not only skill focused, but also work to develop the same type of social media literacy that we look for in our students.

Schools are doing it right – our kids are learning about how managing social media ties into responsible citizenship. What is needed is a replication of those efforts for all Americans. A program of k-100 professional development is needed to ensure that our ability to consider opposing viewpoints is not lost.