What is Digital Citizenship Week?
Digital Citizenship Week is coming up soon, October 16-20, 2023! Common Sense started Digital Citizenship Week to highlight the importance of helping kids, families, and teachers navigate our 24/7 digital world.
What are the benefits of Digital Citizenship Week?
Digital Citizenship Week offers numerous benefits to students and families. It promotes responsible and ethical behavior in the digital realm, educating kids and families about digital literacy and online safety. It also fosters a sense of community and responsibility in the online world. Let’s take a look at three big benefits!
1. It increases awareness! Digital Citizenship Week raises awareness about safety, responsibility, and ethics in the digital world. Here’s how to keep those benefits rolling all year long:
- Subscribe to our newsletter: Get free teaching resources, plus updates on the latest trends in media, tech, and education.
- Create an account: Access free lessons, activities, and resources for your students and their families. (And note that we take your privacy seriously.)
2. It promotes online safety. Our privacy lessons for Digital Citizenship Week emphasize the importance of online safety: protecting passwords, recognizing online scams, and navigating digital drama in healthy ways.
3. It teaches digital well-being. Our resources help kids maintain a healthy balance between their online and offline lives.
- Our new Digital Well-Being lessons for grades 6–8 and 9–12 were co-developed with the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
- The new Device Advice lessons for grades K–5 are a great way to help young students build healthy habits with their devices, along with media and tech.
#DigCitWeek Activity Calendars for Grades K-12
Celebrate Digital Citizenship Week with this calendar of fun activities and resources. Pick one, or teach them all!
- Grades K–2: Help our youngest learners form healthy relationships with media and tech as they Meet the Digital Citizens!
- Grades 3–5 (scroll down): Building healthy habits around tech use can help your students avoid some negative impacts on their mental health and well-being.
Grades 6–8 and Grades 9–12: Support students’ digital well-being and help them build agency, reduce anxious thoughts, and increase mindfulness related to their tech habits.
Bonus: We have some brand-new AI lessons that will be ready just in time for Digital Citizenship Week. Be sure to check back in at the beginning of October!
How to Engage Families
Show colleagues and families how you’re preparing students for success in a connected world with these helpful resources.
- Share the video “What Is Digital Citizenship?” with families!
- See our Family Engagement Toolkit.
- Attend a webinar to learn about implementation, best practices, and advice on creating healthy habits to promote digital well-being in school and beyond!
And don’t forget to share your stories on social media: @CommonSenseEd #DigCitWeek!