Digital Citizenship: Ethics and privacy
In the digital world, we can lose control of the information we share. It’s important to respect other people’s privacy and take control of your own.
In the digital world, we can lose control of the information we share. It’s important to respect other people’s privacy and take control of your own.
For more than a decade, MediaSmarts has been a leader in defining digital literacy in Canada. This is reflected in the elementary digital literacy framework we launched in 2015. The Use, Understand & Create framework is based on a holistic approach which recognizes that the different skills that make up digital literacy cannot be fully separated.
Students and educators are already having to deal with artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications on schoolwork, assignments and lessons. When writing an essay, or when completing a school project, generative AI tools like ChatGPT can maybe speed up the results, save time and craft the correct response. Is that a good thing or are we causing more issues for our futures?
So, parents, you may or may not have noticed that Taylor Swift has announced a tour that will in fact include six Toronto dates.
Ohhhh, you have noticed? Because you tried to get nearly impossible-to-get tickets like 38 million other people did?
Yeah, you aren’t alone.
The intense media coverage that accompanies traumatic events, such as war, acts of terrorism and natural disasters, can be very disturbing. Certain young people are particularly vulnerable and some can be seriously distressed simply by watching replays of such events.
Parents, educators, health practitioners and others who work with kids can help to lessen anxieties arising from the coverage of catastrophic events.
Whether it’s to prepare for the future job market or just to manage the lives they already lead online, young Canadians need to be digitally literate. But what exactly is digital literacy, and how can we ensure that all Canadian youth are learning the digital skills they need?
November 21st marks World Television Day, as chosen by the United Nations in 1996. Naturally, my first reaction is to want to celebrate this day – I love television. TV has been a big part of our lives for a long time, but it has changed a lot since my children (and maybe even yours) were younger. It’s certainly changed since I was a kid.
This four-lesson unit on search skills and critical thinking teaches students how to target and specify their online searches to avoid unwanted results, how to judge whether a link, search result or website is legitimate or phony, and how to find legitimate sources online for media works such as music, videos and movies. In this lesson, students apply what they have learned in the first two lessons to find and verify information online.