The digital society offers new opportunities for communication, employment, and education. As in free and advanced societies throughout history, these advantages are offered to citizens but also require that people act in certain ways?with rights come responsibilities. Laws and regulations are enacted, and penalties set, for those who do not abide by the rules. However, there are many people, especially young people, who must be guided toward becoming responsible citizens, no less in the digital world, than in the physical world.

In the United States, there is an emerging framework of Digital Citizenship. This concept has been named by Dr. Mark Ribble, and Dr. Gerald Bailey of Kansas State University (Ribble & Bailey, 2007) and has been embraced and disseminated through publications and web sites of the International Society for Technology in Education (www.ISTE.org). While the elements of Digital Citizenship are all likely familiar in digital societies, the encompassing framework may not be so familiar. This lecture will introduce the framework to the conference, present experiences of the lecturer with these concepts in online courses with practicing teachers and international students, and relate lecturer observations of Digital Citizenship in multiple cultures, including recent experience in Hungary.

The Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship are both current and future-oriented; flexible and enduring. They include the following:

1. Digital Access: Full electronic participation in society.
2. Digital Commerce: The buying and selling of goods online.
3. Digital Communication: The electronic exchange of information
4. Digital Literacy: The capability to use digital technology and knowing when and how to use it.
5. Digital Etiquette: The standards of conduct expected by other digital technology users.
6. Digital Law: The legal rights and restrictions governing technology use.
7. Digital Health and Wellness: The elements of physical and psychological well-being related to digital technology use.
8. Digital Security: The precautions that all technology users must take to guarantee their personal safety and the security of their network. (Ribble & Bailey, 2007).

As a professor of Instructional Technology in a Teacher Training university, the lecturer has the responsibility to KNOW what rights and responsibilities U.S. citizens have in relation to all of the above elements. She also has the responsibility to MODEL those behaviors, in ways that are transparent and apparent to her students, who are mostly practicing teachers in public schools. Further, she must TEACH that knowledge and those skills to those teachers, and ASSESS their practices of good digital citizenship. But the chain does not stop there. The practicing teachers must also know, model, teach and assess digital citizenship practices of their own school children. The concept of Digital Citizenship can, and should, ultimately protect our rights and security.

Ribble, M., & Bailey, G. (2007). Digital citizenship in schools. Washington DC: ISTE.