When training teachers, it is important to get all faculty on the same page. In our experience, the following steps will help:
1. Familiarize teachers with the initiative. Hold a faculty meeting about the digital citizenship initiative, and discuss the background and classroom resources they have available to them. Discuss the importance of a spiraling approach — building an understanding in students about their digital lives from year to year.
2. Make sure you schedule other times during the year for teachers to evaluate and integrate digital citizenship work. Think about fun ways for teachers to share ideas about digital citizenship in their classrooms.
3. Make sure digital citizenship education is embedded across the curriculum at each grade level. Have a few target areas to address during the year, and encourage teachers to introduce digital citizenship concepts — copyright or privacy issues, for example — within a lesson when appropriate.
4. Build in an end-of-year orientation, introducing faculty to the resources from Common Sense Media and elsewhere. This will provide time for them to integrate a few digital citizenship concepts into their curriculum as they plan over the summer.