This was cool — State Representative Nancy Landry of Louisiana just held a town hall meeting in Metaplace. A big part of the event was Q&A sessions with a middle school class run by teacher Margret Atkinson of Northwestern Middle School, and in attendance were the state’s Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, and the school’s principal, Debby Brian. I believe a few blog posts elsewhere and a video of the event are forthcoming. Eidt: and here’s one.

I was asked to give brief remarks on digital citizenship, and here they are:

So I was asked to make a few comments about digital citizenship, and I think the thing that most strikes me about an event like this is the fact that citizenship is the same whether it exists in the real world or a digital framework. Here we all are at this wonderful event, and the things that we are talking about in this cartoony, digital world are big important, real world issues, like funding for science education, and the legislative process.

Online communities are a VENUE, not an end in themselves. They are just a new way for us to engage in very old practices. And I think that if we managed to transplant some folks from ancient Athens and given them an intensive course in language and computer literacy, they would be perfectly at home with the substance of the discussions today!

At the same time, I think that it also highlights how important that digital literacy IS; after all, without those lessons, they would be less able to participate. And as our society’s tech capabilities grow, I think it’s wonderful to see that our society — and legislators — and principals and school superintendents, and teachers — are willing to invest in that literacy so that future voters, citizens, will be able to participate to the best of their ability using this new technology.

So I want to just say thank you to all of you for taking the plunge!