Adapting Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship resources for impactful eSafety education in Australian early education and primary school settings

As digital technology use becomes common place in the daily lives of young children, education on good digital citizenship is critical in the early years of their education. This project will trial USA-based Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum in 15 Australian schools, and create and trial world leading online safety curriculum materials for pre-school settings, including professional development for teachers. The project is a collaboration with Evolve Education and Common Sense Education.

The project consists of a curriculum intervention in which a diverse range of fifteen schools in five Australian States will implement the Common Sense Education Digital Citizenship curriculum, following professional development. Researchers will collect data about students’ understanding, following their learning experiences. Student focus groups will also be conducted to determine students’ responses to the curriculum.  Teachers will complete a survey and a percentage of students will also take part in individual interviews. In addition, co-design will take place in early years settings to investigate how play-based learning can be applied to digital citizenship with young children in early years settings.

Project aims:

• trial USA-based Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum in 15 Australian schools and create and trial world leading online safety curriculum materials for pre-school settings
• provide pre-school and primary school students with award-winning digital citizenship learning experiences and professional development for teachers
• collect robust data to evaluate the effectiveness of Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship approach in an Australian context

Partners: Common Sense Media, Evolve Education