Digital Literacy and Online Safety (Year 8)

About this unit

Six lessons taken from Common Sense Education’s excellent digital citizenship curriculum, covering a wide range of topics including well-being, privacy and security, online identity, relationships, communication and the media.

A note about this unit

Common Sense Education

The lessons in this unit or work are taken from Common Sense Education’s excellent Digital Citizenship curriculum. Their resources are shared for free under A Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. As a result, this plan can be accessed without logging into our site and is FREE FOR ALL TO USE. It can be shared and used by anyone under the terms of that license. The original materials can be found at: https://www.commonsense.org/education/uk/digital-citizenship

 

Education for a Connected World

The Education for a Connected World framework describes the Digital knowledge and skills that children and young people should have the opportunity to develop at different ages and stages of their lives. It highlights what a child should know in terms of current online technology, its influence on behaviour and development, and what skills they need to be able to navigate it. Common Sense resources are recommended in the Education for a Connected World framework as essential skills for today's learners. Both resources together, along with Project Evolve, provide you with an excellent set of tools to deliver a comprehensive online safety and digital literacy curriculum.

Education for a Connected World's strands align with Common Sense Education's Digital Citizenship strands in the following way:

 

Look out for more detail in each of the lessons in this unit, about the strands and statements from Education for a Connected World that link to each lesson.

National Curriculum Links - Computing KS3

The content of this plan cover the following NC strands: 

  • understand a range of ways to use technology safely, respectfully, responsibly and securely, including protecting their online identity and privacy; recognise inappropriate content, contact and conduct and know how to report concerns.

 

Unit Resources

Unit Resources

Resources for this unit can be found on each lesson page below.

Unit Assessment Sheet

Use our simple assessment system to measure your students' success in this unit of work.

Open resource

Lessons

Lesson 1

  • Make an inventory of their media choices and how those choices make them feel.
  • Brainstorm personal strategies for balancing media use.
  • Create personal guidelines for promoting healthy media balance.

My Media Use: A Personal Challenge

Lesson 2

  • Explain why information about them and their behaviors is valuable to companies.
  • Analyse how certain types of data are used by companies.
  • Learn three strategies to limit individual data collection by companies.

 

Big Big Data

Lesson 3

  • Define the term "digital footprint" and explain how it can affect their online privacy.
  • Analyse how different parts of their digital footprints can lead others to draw conclusions -- both positive and negative -- about who they are.
  • Reflect on what they want their digital footprints to be in the future and how they can monitor and shape them.

The Power of Digital Footprints

Lesson 4

  • Identify the role of social media in students' lives.
  • Reflect on the positive and negative effects of using social media on their relationships.
  • Recognise "red flag feelings" when using social media, and consider ways to handle them.

My Social Media Life

Lesson 5

  • Consider the different perspectives of those involved in a cyberbullying incident.
  • Identify ways to be an upstander or ally to someone being bullied.
  • Problem-solve potential challenges to responding to cyberbullying.

Upstanders and Allies

Lesson 6

  • Define the terms "copyright," "public domain," and "fair use."
  • Identify the purpose of the Four Factors of Fair Use.
  • Apply fair use to real-world examples, making a case for or against.

Copyright and Fair Dealing

Full Computing Glossary

Take a look at our full computing glossary, plus key vocabulary for each age group.

Open resource

Key vocabulary for this unit

ally - someone who responds to a bullying situation by supporting the person being bullied

consumer - A person who buys products or services to use

cookies - small text files stored on a computer that keep track of what a person does on a website

copyright - legal protection that creators have over the things they create

cyberbullying - using digital devices, sites and apps to intimidate, harm and upset someone

data - facts and statistics collected together to be used for different purposes

digital footprint - a record of what you do online, including the sites you visit and the things you post; it can also include things that others post that involve you, such as pictures or comments

empathy - to imagine the feelings that someone else is experiencing

fair dealing - the circumstances in which copyrighted works can be used without permission from the copyright owner

guideline - a set of criteria or piece of advice for how to do something

inventory - a complete list of items or actions, such as property or goods

invisible audience - unknown or unanticipated people who can see information about you posted online

licence - a clear way to define the type of copyright a creative work has, so that others know how they can use it

media balance - using media in a way that feels healthy and in balance with other life activities (family, friends, school, hobbies, etc.)

oversharing - sharing personal feelings, information or experiences that later make someone feel uncomfortable or regretful

persistent - lasting a long time

public domain - creative work that's not copyrighted and free to use without permission

red flag feeling - when something happens that makes you feel uncomfortable, worried, sad or anxious

sampling - reworking a portion of a song or sound recording into a new composition

social media - websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking

targeted advertising - when apps or websites use information that they have collected about you to show you certain types of advertisements

upstander - someone who responds to a bullying situation by confronting the bully directly or by telling a trusted adult

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