Digital Literacy and Citizenship
The digital world offers enormous benefits to us all. Children from a young age are introduced to platforms that allow them to connect and collaborate. It opens up opportunities to learn about new and important issues and empowers them in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
Digital literacy is necessary to become digital citizens. It requires critical thinking skills, an awareness of the necessary standards of behavior expected in online environments, and an understanding of the shared social issues created by digital technologies.
Following are a few of the open resources that educators and educational leadership can utilize to teach digital literacy and citizenship to students.
1. Project Evolve – Digital Literacy and Citizenship with SWGfL
ProjectEVOLVE resources each of the 330 statements from the UK Council for Internet Safety’s (UKCIS) framework “Education for a Connected World” with perspectives; research; activities; outcomes; supporting resources and professional development materials.
The toolkit is based on the UKCIS framework “Education for a Connected World” (EFACW) that covers knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes across eight strands of our online lives from early years right through to eighteen. These outcomes or competencies are mapped to age and progressive.This vast library of content is managed by an innovative new engine, designed by the brilliant SWGfL Webteam, that not only makes navigating the content intuitive but allows users to personalise the content they collate.
Toolkit overview
The cross-curricular lessons arranged in key stages & year groups address digital literacy and citizenship topics in an age-appropriate way.
The Be Internet Awesome curriculum is a collaboration between Google, The Net Safety Collaborative, and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition. This resource is part of the Be Internet Awesome program designed to help teach kids the skills they need to be safe and smart online. Kids can play their way to being Internet Awesome with Interland, an online adventure that puts the key lessons of digital safety into hands-on practise with four challenging games.
Curriculum Document
3. Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers from UNESCO
UNESCO issued its Model Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Curriculum in 2011, which harmonises information, media, and digital competencies under the umbrella term of “MIL”. This flagship resource was updated in 2021 to cover new developments in the digital domain including artificial intelligence, the emergence of new concepts such as digital citizenship education, and the exponential rise in disinformation and online hate speech.
Curriculum Document
Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of a child’s education alongside reading, writing and mathematics and taught accordingly.