The iCitizen Project: A Collaborative Journey Through Social Media

1. The iCitizen Project: A Collaborative Journey Through Social Media #FYS11 and WErCHANGE The iCitizen Model Our Journey Marialice B.F.X. Curran, Ph.D. @mbfxc University of Saint Joseph, West Hartford, CT Beth Sanders @MsSanderTHS Tarrant High School, Birmingham, AL Social Responsibility Empathy Social Justice iCitizenship Town Hall Event live streamed, live tweeted resulting in over 800 tweets #iCit21 What does it mean to be an iCitizen nationally, globally and digitally? With social networking and the Internet being increasingly more integrated into the lives of teens, the lines between national, global, and digital citizenship are beginning to overlap, morphing into something completely new, called iCitizenship. An iCitizen is someone who is a citizen of the world. An iCitizen does not disconnect himself from the other 195 nations. Instead, he sees these nations as his home and therefore sticks up for others regardless of national, cultural, political similarities. An iCitizen sees every person as a human first. If we are all human, don’t we all deserve the same treatment? Be a person who has dignity for themselves and the world, be an iCitizen. ~Bryan Both classes used Twitter and Skype to communicate with another, bridging the physical gap between the two schools and creating an online iCitizen community. We learned to humanize the person next to us, as well as the person on the other side of the screen. Together we learned what it means to be an active citizen instead of just a resident; an enabler of change and not just a bystander.