Sue Thotz is the Los Angeles Education Program Manager for Common Sense Education. She works with districts to create a foundation of digital citizenship that fits with their vision.

 

I met Sue several years ago at the CUE and ISTE conferences. Her enthusiasm about everything she is involved in is so inspiring. Then when I had a chance to have a conversation with her, I learned so much that I couldn’t wait to share it with you. Below are some excerpts from the podcast:

 

Can you share a little about you, your family, and your background?

I grew up in central Illinois. My mother was an immigrant from Okinawa, Japan, and my father was an English teacher. We lived in a town with about 1,000 people and my mom worked at my school. My mom passed away a couple of years ago. I was thinking about her growing up in Okinawa that was an extremely social environment in an island where everyone in the community takes care of everyone else. Then she moved to a small town in Illinois where she knew no one else like her which must have been a very lonely place to live so far away from family and all of her connections. As a teenager, I observed my mom constantly reaching out to connect to others trying to make community wherever she could. Being an adult now, I’m much more social than I was as a teenager. I see myself more like my mother trying to reach out to make connections with people that I feel in community with.

I was very much interested in science so I got my degree in zoology and chemistry and ended up working a long time in a biochemistry lab. Then I decided to do lots of world travel and wacky jobs which eventually led to public health education and education research. Then somehow it brought me on this wild path all the way to Common Sense education. I think it really is kind of how I’ve been able to find community and find people that are like-minded when it comes to the way we see the world and the things that we feel are important and of value to us.

 

Common Sense Media is a great resource. Can you explain what it offers for schools and parents?

Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization that started 14 years ago so parents could have information about the kinds of media and technology that their kids were taking part in. It was in response to a call for censorship when a lot of folks were saying certain movies or music were bad for kids that needed to be censored. Our founder and CEO wanted to introduce the idea of sanity, not censorship. It needed to be about helping make good decisions about the type of media kids were involved with. We started rating media books, music, and video games and continue to do that to this day. That was way before cell phones and all the technology that is part of our lives today. We provide a lot of advice and information for parents to help them guide their kids on how to use technology. Then we created K-12 curriculum for kids that centers on the concept of digital citizenship to help them make good decisions, be responsible and ethical, safe and kind, and use technology for positive forces in their lives.

 

Can you mention what it means to have a digital footprint?

When it comes to exploring kids’ identities and who they are and who they want to be, that is all natural in development and how they want to connect with the world. When you are a kid you tend to take a lot of risks. When we were kids, it was different. We took risks by writing in our diaries or sharing among our own friends and family. Nothing was shared outside of our own groups. Today it is very different. As kids are playing out their identities and making mistakes, we want to encourage them to be curious and take risks to find out who they are while they are growing up. I want my own kids to explore but how do you help them do this exploration in a way that doe...