The educational process and digital citizenship: A proposed vision for the role of formal educational institutions in achieving the dimensions of digital citizenship among students

Abstract

Spreading the culture of digital citizenship through educational programs, initiatives, curricula and decisions adopted by regular educational institutions has become an urgent necessity imposed by the circumstances of the current stage. So that our societies can make the most of technology in building a knowledge society, developing the digital economy, and protecting society from the adverse effects of technology, as the basic requirements of the era in which we live are based on training young people on how to use digital technologies in a safe, ethical, and legal way to become good digital citizens. This study is an attempt to understand and analyze the reality of the role played by educational institutions in achieving the dimensions of digital citizenship in light of the contemporary challenges witnessed by the Arab region to reach the vision of a proposed model that contributes to achieving them. The researcher used the descriptive analytical method as an appropriate approach for such studies. The study concluded with several results, the most important of which are developing educational legislation that explicitly stipulates the place of digital citizenship in university and pre-university education curricula and mechanisms for implementing it, designing programs to prepare and train teachers to equip them with the ethics and behaviours of digital citizenship, and forming a scientific advisory body responsible for developing an integrated plan. Education aims to achieve digital citizenship in cooperation with the authorities concerned with communications and information and to conclude partnership agreements between regular educational institutions and the rest of the community institutions concerned with upbringing issues to spread the culture of digital citizenship.