As I implement digital citizenship in the classroom, I would certainly use some of the ideas from the "5 Reasons You Should Be Teaching Digital Citizenship" article, but not necessarily using real student examples. A past incident in our school, in which an administrator pulled up a student Facebook account detailing that student's participation in illegal activities and contacted the parent, resulted in the parent accusing the school of violating her students rights and embarrassing their family. It was a bit of a mess. With that in mind, I think I'd prefer to use fictional Facebook personas - perhaps "Mr. Pug" pictured here - you can see his potential "Fakebook" page below.
Real "student comments" could be incorporated into the fictional page anonymously and then discussed as a class with a bit more discretion that could be achieved in pulling up an actual student profile. Using a fictional profile, student can explore (perhaps with chagrin) examples of internet publications and social media and explore the concepts of digital citizenship in a non threatening environment.
I love this idea. I think the kids would feel a lot less inhibited by the protection anonymity provides. But the format would allow them to face uncomfortable truths about the dangers of sharing too much personal information.
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