Digital leaders are those who build others up. They are those who help other educators/people along their journey.

Digital leaders:

• Know that when you help someone else you help yourself.
• Are those who are not afraid to make a mistake and continually learn. You don’t need to be in the front lines to do that, you just need to share your experience and know that others have so much to teach you.
• Are responsible digital citizens themselves and demonstrate this so that students and other learners can know what this truly means.

Every person has an opportunity to be helpful … every person has an opportunity to collaborate … to make a difference … to celebrate the good works of others (student, teachers, parents, community members) … to be a digital leader means to learn and be a responsible digital citizen yourself. To truly care enough to enter the digital world so that you can as Alec Couros says “think together” and I would add learn together. It is never too late to learn to be a good digital leader yourself.

CC image by Catherine Cronin

School Counsellors are in an amazing position to be digital leaders to help students and others know the importance of digital citizenship . At BCHS we start every year with a grade 10 retreat where the School Counsellors present on Digital Citizenship . Throughout the year we discuss digital citizenship through our School twitter feed as well as through our Facebook pages. We ask students if we can use their pictures before we publish making sure they have signed the required consent. There are many great School Counsellors who are digital leaders . Just check out the hashtags #SCCrowd and #scchat.

We want our students to be excellent digital citizens, but we know that takes time , effort , patience and great role modelling by all staff and educators in general.

Fortunately I know many great digital leaders (too many to list here)  which is a great thing , however I will list a few if you are just getting started :

Dr. Alec Couros @courosa

George Couros @gcouros

Dr. Erin Mason @ecmmason

#etmooc ‘ers

Want to be a good digital leader? You can start today. It is never too late.