Educator and author Kristen Mattson, Ed.D., has a bone to pick with a lot of the digital citizenship curricula used in schools today. Too much of it, she says, focuses on what not to do, and it rarely addresses the opportunities and responsibilities of the digital world. In addition, much of it is isolated from any real context and doesn’t give students many opportunities to practice their skills as citizens of digital communities. This article explores strategies to help digital citizens engage with empathy.

This article describes how teachers can effectively teach digital citizenship and provides resources to help teachers learn more about weaving digital citizenship throughout instruction.

Help your students and their parents understand digital citizenship and their place on the web.

Unit 3 of Google’s digital safety curriculum is focused on teaching students to get real about privacy and security.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. Many details that raise "red flags" for adults can go overlooked by kids. Help them learn what they are, what to look for, and how to "trust their gut" when they encounter suspicious or possibly harmful emails, websites, and apps.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. The "golden rule" is just as important online as it is "IRL". The internet can be a truly great place to learn when comments, conversations, and content are positive. Help students see how to make choices that disempower bullying behaviour and create healthy, productive spaces to interact.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. The "golden rule" is just as important online as it is "IRL". The internet can be a truly great place to learn when comments, conversations, and content are positive. Help students see how to make choices that disempower bullying behaviour and create healthy, productive spaces to interact.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. The "golden rule" is just as important online as it is "IRL". The internet can be a truly great place to learn when comments, conversations, and content are positive. Help students see how to make choices that disempower bullying behaviour and create healthy, productive spaces to interact.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. Help your students understand that privacy is more than just what they choose to share or not share online. This lesson helps students understand what information should be private and safeguarded – and what they need to do to keep it that way.

This resource is a Google Slides/Pear Deck lesson you can use in your classroom. Helping kids understand that what they post can be forwarded, copied, and found is crucial to staying safe online. Teach students how to recognize and steer clear of potentially embarrassing or even dangerous situations that could have lasting consequences.

This is a lesson plan created by Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens. This lesson gives students an experience that teaches them how to identify copyrighted work and understand Creative Commons licenses for finding creative work. This resource includes the lesson plan (pdf) and links to an accompanying Google Slides presentation and YouTube video.

This is a lesson plan created by Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens. This lesson reinforces fair use concepts and the basic protections and limitations of copyright. Students learn how copyright encourages creative expression. This resource includes the lesson plan (pdf) and links to an accompanying Google Slides presentation and YouTube video.

As creators, we need to be aware of copyright law and the appropriate ways to use original work responsibly with fair use. Being a creator means giving credit where credit is due and getting credit for your original work!

This is a lesson plan created by Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens. In this lesson plan, Students learn about ownership concepts associated with creative work and how their work might be shared. This resource includes the lesson plan (pdf) and links to an accompanying Google Slides presentation and YouTube video.

Using technology well and understanding how online actions affect self and others are foundational skills. These skills are necessary to understand the importance of teaching digital citizenship in today’s educational environments.

Students will understand how their digital citizenship applies in library, reference, and education. They will see how those skills bridge into their everyday lives as well.

This lesson plan is designed to help teach middle school students how to be a good digital citizen.

This is a lesson plan created by Copyright & Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens. Students learn the challenges and benefits of respecting ownership and copyright, particularly in digital environments. The lesson also explores the concept of fair use. This resource includes the lesson plan (pdf) and links to an accompanying Google Slides presentation and YouTube video.

In this assignment, students will work together to create a digital story on the importance of digital citizenship. 

This article describes how one teacher incorporates digital citizenship skills in authentic contexts.