Workshops

DigitalSmarts

Digital literacy is a vital tool for education, employment and economic participation, civic engagement, and even health and wellness. It reinforces existing inequalities based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, education, immigration status and gender. Given the importance of digital literacy skills to under-represented populations, MediaSmarts and YWCA Canada have partnered to develop and deliver DigitalSmarts, a digital literacy skills program.

Break the Fake: How to tell what’s true online

The Break the Fake: How to tell what's true online workshop will teach audiences four quick, easy steps they can take to spot misinformation and find out if something online is true or not. Designed for audiences aged 11 and up, this workshop comes with everything you need to host a 60-minute presentation - including a slideshow, facilitator guide and handouts.

Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Workshop

The Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum workshop provides teachers with a comprehensive approach to fostering critical thinking skills at all grade levels, with particular attention to addressing online misinformation and online hate through teaching critical thinking. The workshop looks at exactly what critical thinking is and why we need to teach it; explores how we can teach students how to think critically, including looking at different ways of approaching it for different parts of the curriculum; and finally, looks at how we can get students – and ourselves – to switch to using better shortcuts to critical thinking.

Digital Literacy Training Program for Canadian Educators Workshop

The Digital Literacy Training Program for Canadian Educators workshop provides an overview of essential digital literacy skills and key concepts of media and digital literacy, familiarizes participants with the digital experiences of Canadian youth, and introduces the resources and tools that are available through MediaSmarts’ USE, UNDERSTAND & CREATE digital literacy framework.

Respecting Yourself and Others Online Workshop

The Respecting Yourself and Others Online workshop was created to provide tweens and young teens with strategies and knowledge that will help them respect themselves, respect others and respect the space when using social media.

The Parent Network: Social Media and Your Kids Workshop

Understanding the connected world of kids and teens can be challenging for parents because adults don’t communicate online in the same way and are not necessarily using the same social media. Even more challenging is the reality that there’s always something new coming around the corner.

Half Girl, Half Face Workshop

Intended for girls in grades 7-9, Half Girl, Half Face explores many of the online image issues teenage girls may encounter when they use digital media – particularly social networks.

Raising Ethical Kids For a Networked World

The Raising Ethical Kids For a Networked World tutorial examines some of the moral dilemmas that kids face in their online activities and shares some strategies to help them build the social and emotional intelligence that’s needed to support ethical decision making – and build resiliency if things go wrong.

Parenting the Digital Generation

The Parenting the Digital Generation workshop looks at the various activities kids love to do online and offers tips and strategies for everything from Facebook privacy settings, online shopping, cyberbullying, to protecting your computer from viruses.

Facing Online Hate

The Facing Online Hate tutorial examines how the Internet is used to spread and incite hate – and how parents, community leaders and educators can respond. The first part of the tutorial provides an overview of hate and prejudice online and how it can radicalize young people and have a negative impact on both online and offline communities. The second part covers how teachers and parents can prepare young people to recognize online hate, to respond and to push back when they see it.

That's Not Me: Diversity and Media

The That’s Not Me tutorial focuses on the role that mainstream media play in shaping our perceptions about diversity. The tutorial explores what we see – and what we don’t see – on TV and in newspapers, video games, movies, the internet and other media. The tutorial looks at common trends in media portrayals of diversity and examines the reasons behind these trends; explores some of the factors behind media bias when covering diversity issues; and talks about the importance of media education to talking about diversity issues and empowering young people to take action.