iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Citizenship knows no boundaries. The civics lessons we teach our students outside of the digital arena apply to the online world and vice versa. So why should we place restrictions on being good citizens? Shouldn’t we always be good citizens—both online and off?

As a classroom teacher and an instructional technologist, I struggled with how to find time in students’ already-busy schedules to incorporate digital citizenship, even though I knew it was important to teach. Additionally, the name itself didn’t help my cause. Those reluctant to embrace technology wholeheartedly were immediately repelled by the word “digital” while early adopters found the title redundant. So I lost the digital.

In an historic move for both human- and robot-kind, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially granted its first-ever robot citizenship. Sophia, the artificially intelligent and human-looking robot developed by Hong Kong company Hanston Robotics, went on stage at the Future Investment Initiative on Thursday where she herself announced her unique status.