Student Center for the Public Trust

In August 2015, volunteers from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Chapter of the Student Center for Public Trust (UCCS StudentCPT) created presentations and implemented an educational program called “Digital Citizenship” aimed at students in 6-8th grade.

Over 271 middle school students attended 4 different small group training sessions as a prerequisite to getting their new iPads for the coming academic year. This was an interactive program with videos, classroom activities, and a take home booklet culminating in an iPad users license with their photo on it. Over the two day span, StudentCPT volunteers taught on topics such as:

• Digital Life – what is the place of digital media in our lives? The care and proper use of your new iPad.
• A creator’s responsibilities – what responsibilities do you have to respect other’s creative work?
• Trillion Dollar Footprint – what is a digital footprint and what does your convey?
• Cyberbullying: Crossing the Line – when does inappropriate online behavior cross the line to cyberbullying and what can you do about it?
• Safe Online Talk – how should you handle inappropriate online talk?

So what did the StudentCPT volunteers get out of this experience? One volunteer said, “We learned about the subject more than we knew since we had to teach it. This young generation is more connected that we were at that age- we grew into it and they were raised in it.”

Congratulations to the UCCS StudentCPT chapter for Being a Difference to local children in their community.