I started off my daily Twitter review yesterday with a post from @Sue_Crowley with several intriguing comments:
I’m sure he’s done more for their PR than £thousands could have!
— Lisa Pettifer (@Lisa7Pettifer) July 11, 2017
and
Now that is how to do social media. Many companies could learn from this.
— JonStruthers (@JonStruthers) July 11, 2017
I decided to check it out. It appears that source of all the hubbub centers on phenomenal new customer service rep managing the Southern Rail UK Twitter account. His name’s Eddie, and he’s a 15 year old receiving some work experience. 
Not only did he do a fabulous job fielding ordinary customer service questions, but he interacted with customers in a way that definitely caught Twitter’s attention. And young as he is, several interested parties already appear to be trying to poach him for their organizations:
This is definitely one young digital citizen that has his 4 C’s down: communication (fielding hundreds of comments), critical thinking (figuring out helpful responses), creativity (engaging with people in a fun way that got the attention of thousands), and collaboration (working with Neil).
Ultimately, this thread brought me back to reflecting on digital citizenship and literacy yet again. While we know that the jobs of the future will little-resemble the jobs of today, we still often treat the very devices and platforms that will carry our students toward that future — as nuisances. Banning phones, blocking Youtube, insisting on a single way of note-taking.
But here, we have an example of what happens when our students are given authentic opportunities to engage with those devices and platforms and audiences instead.
The fact is, digital citizenship empowers students to amplify their voices for good. Shunning it for fear of the distraction, cyberbullying, etc. perpetuates the very mentality that encourages abuse of these resources: namely, that they are not part of the “real world” and are therefore relegated only for entertainment purposes.
So next time you encounter a blanket ban of a digital resource that seems to favor adult convenience over student ownership, here are a few questions you might ask:
- How might teaching digital citizenship help students treat the resource with more responsibility?
- What are alternative courses of action to remove the nuisance factor?
- How often do you personally treat this resource as an opportunity to create, share, and connect, vs. simple entertainment?
- How often do you share with your students the ways that you use this resource to create, share, share, and connect?
- How can you re-envision my students using this resource in a powerful, meaningful way (both now and throughout their lives)? How can you help your students see themselves using the resource in that way?
- Will this ban help or hinder students in their development of the 4 C’s of 21st century learning?
featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto