Digital Literacy
Netsafe asserts that digital citizenship combines the confident, fluent use and combination of three key elements:
Skills and strategies to access technology to communicate, connect, collaborate and create;
Attitudes, underpinned by values that support personal integrity and positive connection with others;
Understanding and knowledge of the digital environments and contexts in which they are working, and how they integrate on/offline spaces;
and then critically:
The ability to draw on this competency of ‘digital fluency’ to participate in life-enhancing opportunities (social, economic, cultural, civil) and achieve their goals in ways that make an important difference.
Year 3-4
By the end of year 4 students understand that they should stay safe online by choosing websites that are good to visit, and avoids sites that are not appropriate. They understand the reasons why people use passwords, the benefits of using passwords, and knows strategies for creating and keeping strong, secure passwords. They are becoming aware that photographic images can be digitally manipulated for positive purposes or to mislead us, and can distort of our perceptions of beauty and health. Students understand what it means to be responsible to and respectful of their offline and online communities as a way to learn how to be a good digital citizen. Students understands that he/she may get online messages from other kids that can make him/her feel angry, hurt, sad, or fearful. Students understands how cyberbullying is similar to or different than in-person bullying, and strategies for handling cyberbullying when it arises. They understands that the information they put online leaves a digital footprint or “trail.” This trail can be big or small, helpful or hurtful, depending on how he/she manages it. They understands the concept of having ownership over creative work.
Students will be able to explain the advantages of communicating electronically, e.g. time saving, resource saving, cost effectiveness, able to have multiple users communicating simultaneously, content is easily shared/saved/stored/tagged. They will begin to use an online collaborative platform to create or edit a file, e.g. word processing, presentation tools, spreadsheets. They understand that the digital environment can make things better or worse depending on how we use it. Students begin to manage the potentially distracting aspects of working digitally.
Students create original digital works as a means of personal or group expression. They apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes using digital technology.
Students understand that an algorithm is a step by step process to solve a problem, that we can use to write computer programs, and the programmes need to be precise and unambiguous instructions so that the computer can follow them. Students give, follow and debug simple algorithms in both computerised and non computerised environments. They can use these algorithms to create a simple program involving input, output & sequencing in an age - appropriate programming environment.