Digital Commerce

I completed a survey of students about online purchasing. I teach sixth grade, and I found that the majority of students were not purchasing items online independently yet. Out of about sixty students that I polled, thirty-one students had purchased items online prior to the survey. Out of those thirty-one students, many had purchased songs from ITunes using an account previously set up by their parents. The others had purchased items with their parent’s guidance and using their parent’s credit card. A few were not sure how they paid for the item that they purchased because their parents closely supervised and completed the process for them.

The majority of the sixth graders that I teach are completely unaware that there can be any problems with online purchases. I am not totally certain they recognize problems or advantages associated with purchasing online. It was a positive that parents are actively involving their children in online purchases and supervising them. However, it would ideal if schools would give some more education on this area of digital citizenship. Students are completely unaware of the dangers that adults already understand. I don’t think that there is any question that students should receive further education in digital commerce, but it would be nice if parents could be involved in the conversation as well. Perhaps, through structuring a course at school, the teacher could require students to talk to parents, and there could always be an after school program for students and parents to attend together in further education on digital commerce. If students aren’t made to understand the consequences of their online purchases, they could make dreadful mistakes now that would follow them for the rest of their life.