Assign These Insightful Digital Citizenship Week Activities

In 2010, Common Sense Education teamed up with Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to launch a joint Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum, which became Digital Citizenship Week two years later. 

Now, during the third week of October each year, teachers in all subject areas share Digital Citizenship Week activities in their classrooms. These activities teach students how best to interact with others online and engage with online content.

• Start a digital citizenship course with your students
• Dig into more specific digital citizenship topics

[Start a digital citizenship course with your students](id-ss)

Explore the Newsela Social Studies digital citizenship and media literacy courses for each grade band. The courses cover age-appropriate topics such as validating sources, staying safe online, and learning more about new digital technologies like AI.

Elementary digital citizenship and media literacy course

For your youngest students, understanding digital citizenship is an extension of the life skills we’re already teaching them in the real world. Key points include staying safe, being kind, and recognizing when to step away from a situation. This course covers units like:

• How can my digital footprint affect me?
• How can I be an upstander online?
• Should kids care about fake news?
• How can we use AI to make a difference?
• How can I spread kindness online?
• How can I be safe online?
• How much screen time is too much?

Middle school digital citizenship and media literacy course

Middle schoolers use technology even more than elementary school students, primarily for entertainment, interacting with friends, and doing schoolwork. It’s important that they understand how to evaluate the content they encounter online to determine fact from fiction. This course covers units like:

• What is media literacy?
• What does it mean to be a responsible digital citizen?
• What’s real and what’s fake (news)?
• How can bias change how we see the world?
• What is AI?
• What is an algorithm, and how does it shape what we see online?

High school digital citizenship and media literacy course

High schoolers encounter technology and online content in every aspect of their lives, from socializing to school and work. Learning how to use these tools correctly and responsibly can help students as they enter the real world and practice their civic duties. This course covers units like:

• Why is media literacy important?
• How do you identify “Real News” vs. “Fake News”?
• What is the impact of “fake news”?
• Why does the way the news is covered matter?
• How influential are influencers?
• How can you use AI?
• How can algorithms impact us psychologically?

[Dig into more specific digital citizenship topics] (id-ela)

Narrow in on some of the digital citizenship topics students care most about with these curated Newsela ELA text sets:

Discover how cyberbullying and empathy are related

Talking to someone from behind a screen makes it easier to forget that there’s a real person with real feelings on the other side. Help students better understand what cyberbullying is and learn how to build empathy for others, even when there’s a screen between them:

• Read about how more young people are asking friends and family members for help after getting bullied online.
• Discover a student opinion article that discusses the negative effects of bullying in schools.
• Explore potential solutions for cyberbullying and what people can do to be more aware and proactive about the problem.

Explore the consequences of AI and cheating

AI is everywhere (even across Newsela’s products!). But when it’s misused, students can face serious consequences. Help them understand what happens if they use AI for dishonest purposes with the following lesson:

• Start by asking students if they’ve known anyone who has used the internet to help them complete a school assignment, what tools they used, and why. Then ask if there were any consequences of using that tool.
• Next, assign an opinion article about how AI writing tools like ChatGPT are making it easier for students to cheat with technology.
• Extend the lesson by asking students to write an argumentative essay supporting their point of view that AI is either beneficial or harmful to students. Try it on Newsela Writing!

Watch videos about media literacy and digital citizenship

Go beyond texts to help students understand digital citizenship. Choose from interactive videos on topics like:

• Digital footprints.
• Mass media.
• Propaganda.
• Online data protection. 
• Online safety.

Newsela’s subject products go beyond Digital Citizenship Week

Newsela ELA and Newsela Social Studies provide the texts, videos, and resources you need to help students learn how to be smart, safe, and respectful online. 

But these lessons don’t just last one week. You can use them all year to help students make intelligent decisions about the media they consume and how they evaluate online content and behavior.

Not a Newsela customer yet? Sign up for Newsela Lite for free and start your 45-day trial of our premium subject products. Get access to the content and scaffolds you need to teach all your Digital Citizenship Week lessons and beyond!