Facilitator Guide

The My Digital World program is designed to serve internet users through a multi-faceted approach encompassing formal and informal teachings, together with individual activities. To begin using the program, simply follow the steps below.

REVIEW MATERIALS

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the teaching materials before delivering them. The My Digital World program contains the following:

• Facilitator Guide
• Learning Best Practices
• 34 Lessons Across Six Pillars (see “Understanding the Lesson Structure” below)
• Program Introductory Parent Letter (see “Appendix”)

The lessons were designed to be adapted for many subjects and interests, lesson formats, and timelines and to make it as easy as possible to integrate them into both formal and informal learning environments. The digital world is dynamic, and these teaching materials are designed to be as well. As such, this guide will likely evolve over time.

INFORM PARENTS

Let parents know that you are using My Digital World to teach digital citizenship and wellbeing and ask that they help reinforce the skills at home. On the My Digital World website, parents will find conversation starters and activities to review digital citizenship and wellbeing concepts with their children.

TEACH THE LESSONS

The My Digital World program is designed to be delivered as either a full curriculum or as standalone lessons in both high-tech or low-tech environments.

The lessons are fully scripted and provide guidance about how you can prepare for and deliver these lessons in formal and informal settings. They are also open-ended enough that you can modify them to fit the needs of your learners.

Throughout the lessons, there are opportunities to localize the examples and names to fit your student’s experience and local context. These opportunities are labeled as “Teacher’s Notes”. We recommend reviewing each lesson ahead of your class to ensure the examples fit your student’s local context.

The My Digital World program organizes the major digital citizenship and wellbeing skills across six content pillars: Introductions, Foundations, Wellness, Engagement, Empowerment, and Opportunities. The lessons in each pillar can be taught individually or consecutively from Introductions of Digital Learning to Digital Opportunities. The progression of this content, if taught in succession, may take learners from navigating more common online experiences to how they can use their digital skills in current and future careers and pathways.

It’s important to keep in mind that while these pillars and their lessons can be taught sequentially, the sequence can depend on the perceived importance of each skill (see “Glossary”) and will depend upon your or your learners’ context. Contextual factors that could be relevant may include age, gender, location, skill, and educational level.

The lessons and activities in this section help learners understand what the internet is, identify information that can be shared over the internet, determine various methods for accessing information online, and discover the benefits, roles, and responsibilities of digital citizenship.

Skills addressed include digital learning and safety and wellbeing.

1. What is the internet and how do we connect to it?: Students will learn what the internet is and explore how to access it.
2. Digital information and sharing: Participants will identify what digital information is, how it is shared over the internet, and how to protect it.
3. Access to information and online communities: Learners will determine various methods for accessing information and social communities online.
4. Digital identity and online reputation: Students will establish a sense of the benefits and responsibilities that come with being a part of an online community including information that is publicly available.
5. Digital citizenship and why it matters: Learners will identify the benefits, roles, and responsibilities of being a good digital citizen.

The lessons and activities in this section help learners understand how to get connected and use the internet and other platforms effectively. The lessons also help learners protect their data and information (and that of others), as well as their digital devices and assets.

Skills addressed include digital access, privacy, and data literacy.

1. Introduction to privacy: Participants will explore their individual sense of privacy and the impact it has on their own lives. Participants will consider the kinds of information they would like to keep private and the contexts in which they will or won’t share specific information.
2. Privacy and you: Participants will explore what kinds of information might be best kept “private”, how to customize privacy settings on social media, and how to explain their decision-making process for their settings (e.g., why certain content is set to “friends only” vs. a “public” setting).
3. Passwords: Participants will learn how to keep their online information more secure by using and maintaining strong passwords. Participants will learn about the principles of strong password design and the potential problems of password sharing. They will also learn how to keep their passwords safe and how to take steps to prevent unauthorized access to their accounts.
4. Connectivity: Participants will learn about Wi-Fi networks and their benefits and risks. More specifically, they will learn to recognize unsecured Wi-Fi when it is available to them, understand the tradeoffs inherent in using unsecured Wi-Fi, and make informed decisions about when to connect to and use unsecured Wi-Fi.
5. Cybersecurity, phishing, and spam: Participants will learn about malicious online users who might attempt to use security weaknesses to gather information about them. Participants will be able to describe the risks of being online, develop strategies to engage in safer behaviors, identify spam messages, and explain who should ask for their password.

The lessons and activities in this section help learners explore their identities, engage with others (both individuals and the larger collective) online in empathic, ethical, and positive ways, and counteract the risks the digital world may come with to protect their physical and mental health.

Skills addressed include identity exploration and formation, positive/respectful behavior, and safety and wellbeing.

1. Reputation: Participants will consider how publicly available online information helps form others’ opinions about them. They will identify audiences for different types of online communication, consider what information they want to appear when someone searches for their name, and learn various ways to respond to internet content about them they do not like.
2. Social media and sharing: Participants will think about privacy in terms of how they share information and communicate with others online, specifically regarding social media use. They will be able to explain tradeoffs in privacy in the context of social media and learn how to use online privacy settings effectively.
3. Online presence: Participants will be able to identify one type of personal information they can manage online, one form of information they can’t totally control online, and one thing they can do about some aspect of their personal information online not directly controlled by them.
4. Different perspectives: Participants will examine the role of perspective when evaluating information linked to their online presence or the online presence of others. They will gain awareness of the relevant contextual factors (e.g., time, cultural, social, local/regional/global) that impact one’s online presence. Additionally, participants will consider the implications of the information they put online on their relationships with family, friends, teachers, employers, and others.
5. Who do you want to be?: Participants will examine how their online identity and the content they create and share relates to their goals (e.g., career-related, academic, interests they would like to pursue). They will explore how to manage an online persona that considers subject, platform, name, visual representation, and privacy settings.
6. A moment for me: a self-compassion break for teens: Participants will compare and contrast the ways they respond to a close friend in distress (versus themselves) and consider how they might adjust what they say to themselves when they are struggling.
7. A time I felt grateful: Participants will define gratitude and give an example of a time they felt grateful and understand that there are many types of things we can feel grateful for.

The lessons and activities in this section help learners interpret contextual factors of relevance (e.g., cultural, social, local/regional/global) in a given situation and effectively engage in it, as well as find, evaluate, create, and share information and other content in different media forms.

Skills addressed include context, information quality, and media literacy.

1. Respect and boundaries: Participants will better understand others’ perspectives and feelings in the context of individuals sharing personal information online.
2. Healthy online relationships: Participants will explore qualities that constitute healthy and kind relationships and how online behaviors play a role in both healthy and unhealthy relationships. Participants will also examine the opportunities and challenges around the intersection between social media and relationships in their own peer group and learn how to promote upstanding behavior among their peers.
3. What is verification?: Participants will learn what information verification is and why it is important for news consumers to verify the stories they read or view. They will consider the responsibilities news organizations, audience members, and social media companies have in promoting a media landscape of truthful news information.
4. The verification steps: Participants will learn about a 5-step checklist they can use to verify the provenance, source, date, location, and motivation of a news image or video. They will recognize the limitations inherent in the verification process and begin to consider the various online and offline tools they can use to investigate the veracity of content online. Participants will reflect on how a source’s motivation may affect the portrayal of a news event.
5. Versions of media texts: Participants will be able to define what a scrape (a copy from an original) is and explain why the proliferation of this type of media text can make the verification process more difficult during breaking news events. They will create and share their own scrapes online as they reflect upon when it is important to identify a scrape’s source or a news event’s original context.
6. Best possible self: Participants will imagine and write about their lives at 40.

The lessons and activities in this section help learners participate in public matters, advocate for the issues they care about, produce content, and understand and apply legal concepts.

Skills addressed include civic and political engagement, content production, and law.

1. Advocacy and making change: Participants will learn about the concept of advocacy by identifying an issue that affects their community and brainstorming two changes that they want to see in the future concerning that problem.
2. Building your advocacy network: Participants will learn how social networks can be leveraged to promote advocacy efforts. Participants will also learn how to develop online content to spread information about a cause of interest.
3. Raising awareness through media: Participants will learn about and identify ways in which various types of media can be used to promote awareness around an issue.
4. Hashtags: Participants will learn how hashtags have been effective in promoting social movements. Participants will also identify how hashtags on social media can help raise awareness about an advocacy issue and will develop their own hashtag and methods of promotion for a cause that interests them.
5. Time for action!: Participants will learn how to develop an initial plan for their own advocacy campaign.
6. Exploring your personal values: Participants will sort a list of values in order of importance and reflect on how the most important values impact their lives and their future plans.

The lessons and activities in this section help students learn the skills they need to fully leverage the opportunities the digital world may offer. This may include the ability to understand and take part in conversations around artificial intelligence, understand and apply computational concepts, engage in data creation, collection, interpretation, and analysis, and navigate economic activities online and offline.

Skills addressed include artificial intelligence, computational thinking, data, and digital economy.

1. Exploring experiences: Participants will learn to identify specific experiences that have shaped who they are today, reflect on how such experiences might be powerful for their future, and consider ways they can create new experiences that help them achieve their goals.
2. Identifying our strengths: Participants will identify three types of skills that they possess — transferable, knowledge and domain, and personal trait skills — and consider how they may combine these skills and apply them toward opportunities in the future.
3. Creating a CV: Participants will learn about different CV formats and practice writing a CV based on interests, experiences, skills, and goals. Participants will also learn about what a CV is and why it is important for their long-term goals.
4. What is an algorithm?: Participants will understand what an algorithm is, why algorithms matter, and how algorithms are used in both everyday life and computer science.
5. Social media and algorithms: Participants will be able to understand various ways algorithms help shape the content they see on social media and apply these understandings to their own social media feed(s).

Access Point: An access point is anything that transmits (broadcasts) a Wi-Fi signal and provides access to the internet.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): The ability to understand the algorithms involved in the AI-based platforms one interacts with and the ethical conversations happening around the development of these technologies.

Civic and Political Engagement: The ability to participate in public matters (e.g., LGBTQ rights, peace building, addressing hate speech) and advocate for issues one cares about — using digital and non-digital tools — ideally to promote the quality of life in one’s community from micro to macro levels (Levine, 2007).

Computational Thinking: The ability to understand and apply computational concepts, practices, and perspectives. Computational concepts include concepts individuals leverage as they program (e.g., “sequencing” or identifying a set of steps for a task, “loops” or running the same series of steps multiple times). Computational practices represent the practices individuals cultivate while they program (e.g., “experimenting and iterating”, “reusing and remixing”, or creating something by building upon current ideas or projects). Finally, computational perspectives refer to the perspectives individuals develop about themselves, their connections to others (such as within the context of collaborative online communities) and the technological world more broadly (e.g., “connecting” or understanding the power of developing content both with and for others) (Brennan & Resnick, 2012).

Content Production: The ability to produce (digital) content using (digital) tools.

Context: The ability to be aware of, understand, and interpret the contextual factors of relevance (e.g., cultural, social, local/regional/global) in a given situation — with a particular emphasis on the experiences and perspectives of underrepresented groups, whether in terms of age, ethnicity, race, gender and sexual identity, religion, national origin, location, skill and educational level, and/or socioeconomic status — and effectively engage in the situation.

Data: The ability to be aware of, create, collect, represent, evaluate, interpret, and analyze data from digital and non-digital sources.

Digital Access: The ability to connect to and access the internet, individually or collectively (e.g., mesh technologies).

Digital Economy: The ability to navigate economic activities online and offline to earn different forms of economic, social, and/or cultural capital (e.g., earning money, increasing social connections, building personal brands).

Digital Literacy: The ability to use the internet and other digital tools and platforms effectively to find, interact with, evaluate, create, and reuse information (Palfrey & Gasser, 2016). The ability to comprehend and work through conceptual problems in digital spaces (Carretero, Vuorikari & Punie, 2017).

Identity Exploration and Formation: The ability to use (digital) tools to explore elements of one’s own identity and to understand how communities are part of shaping one’s identity.

Information Quality: The ability to find, interact with, evaluate, create, and reuse information (broadly speaking; e.g., news, health information, personal information) effectively (Palfrey & Gasser, 2016).

Internet: A vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. The internet includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks.

Law: The ability to engage with legal frameworks, concepts, and theories surrounding the internet and other digital tools (e.g., copyright, fair use) and the ability to apply these frameworks to one’s activities.

Media Literacy: The ability to analyze, evaluate, circulate, and create content in any media form (e.g., print, visual, interactive, audio) and to participate in communities and networks. “Media literacies,” in plural, include “media literacy” (Hobbs, 2010), what some researchers have conceptualized as “new literacies” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007), and “new media literacies” (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison & Weigel, 2006). That is, they encompass not only literacy approaches that focus on individual engagement with media (media literacy) but also competencies that address community involvement and participatory cultures. “Media literacies” also include literacies such as reading and writing.

Modem: A modem is a device that creates and maintains a connection to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to give you access to the internet. It converts signals from outside your given location into signals that can be read by your computer and other digital devices.

Network: A network is a collection of computer systems and devices that are linked together worldwide.

Positive/Respectful Behavior: The ability to interact with others (both individuals and the larger collective) online in a respectful, ethical, socially responsible, and empathetic manner.

Privacy and Reputation: The ability to protect one’s personal information online and that of others. An understanding of the digital “trail” left behind as a result of the activities one engages in online, the short- and long-term consequences of this trail, the appropriate management of one’s virtual footprint, as well as an understanding of inferred data (i.e., new data derived from capturing and analyzing other data points, which may result in new knowledge about a person (van der Hof, 2016)).

Router: A router is a device that creates a network between all the devices (e.g. computers, tablets, mobile phones) in a given location (like a school, library, or your home).

Safety and Well-Being: The ability to counteract the risks that the digital world may come with to protect one’s physical and mental well-being (e.g., guarding against internet addiction and repetitive stress syndrome). Online risks can be classified along three main dimensions: conduct (e.g., cyberbullying, sexual harassment, or unwelcome “sexting”), contact (e.g., face-to-face meeting after online contact, communication with individuals pretending to be another person), and content (e.g., exposure to pornographic content, violent or aggressive content, harmful speech, content about drugs, racist content) (Livingstone, Kirwall, Ponte & Staksrud, 2013).

Security: The ability to protect the integrity of one’s information, digital devices, and assets (e.g., login information such as passwords, profiles, and websites).

What else does My Digital World offer?

In addition to the six learning modules on the website, My Digital World also provides guides for educators on best practices for teaching students in both an online and offline setting and provides resources for parents and guardians to use at home to reiterate the lessons taught in the classroom.

Who are these lessons meant for and how were they created?

The lessons are designed for students aged 13-18 years old in Sub-Saharan Africa. The curriculum is designed with step-by-step instructions for teachers of students in this age range. These lessons are drawn from the resources of several expert partners with experience designing content and curriculum. Please see the About Us page on the website to learn more about our content partners.

What does a lesson look like?

Each lesson is fully scripted but provides room for educators to adapt the content to fit the needs of their specific learners. The lessons serve both high-tech and low-tech communities — many of the lessons have been developed for learning settings with little to no internet access.

Can the lessons be used in an online teaching environment? 

Yes, the lessons are designed to be used in both in-person and online environments, with specific instructions given for facilitators teaching online.

Can you give me an example of how I could integrate a lesson into my classroom? 

The lessons can be integrated across the school curriculum. Here are a few helpful examples for the following five subject areas: History, English, Science, Math, and World Language.

HISTORY

• Civic and political engagement: Make a comparison between a historical social movement and a more recent one. How did people communicate with each other within the movement? How were the movements covered in the media? As part of this exercise, you could introduce students to the “Hashtags” lesson.

ENGLISH

• Security: Have students write persuasive essays on a security-related topic. An example could include students arguing for or against connecting personal devices to the school Wi-Fi network. In the process, students will likely interact with technical texts. One of their goals will be to make this information understandable to a general audience. As part of this activity, you could introduce students to the “Connectivity” lesson.
• Identity exploration and formation: Have students create a social media profile (real or fake) for characters in a literary text the class is reading. Have students choose the profile picture, handle or username, “About Me” section, friends list, and a few sample posts and/or images the character would share. Have students consider what the character shares publicly and what you, the reader, know only because of the narrator’s analysis. Consider having multiple students create a profile for the same character and then have the class compare and contrast each of the profiles created. Why did the students make the decisions about what to include in the profile they created? Does each profile accurately represent what we know from the text? Why or why not? As part of this activity, you could introduce students to the “Online Presence” lesson.

SCIENCE

• Digital economy: Online media that teaches about scientific concepts has grown popular, as YouTubers, bloggers, and personalities like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson all utilize digital communication tools to build an online brand that makes complex scientific ideas accessible to a mass audience. With your students, identify how these popular science online content creators establish trust with their audience, how they cite scientific information, and the different strategies they use to make their content entertaining for their audience. Discuss the skills students think are involved in developing this content (e.g., research, creative thinking, media production). Using these best practices, have your students create content for a popular science YouTube channel, webpage, or blog and have them reflect on some of the skills they developed in this process. Discuss the differences in preparing content for a science-professional audience vs. a general population audience. As part of this activity, you could introduce students to the “Identifying Our Strengths” lesson.

MATH

• Information quality: Identify a news story that presents a mathematical concept in an unclear way. A good example of this is a misleading statistic. Have participants identify the source of the statistic (e.g., from what research article is the statistic from?). Do they see the statistics presented in other news stories? If so, encourage students to make a timeline of the sources where this statistic appeared. Discuss: For each source, what potentially motivated the use of the statistic? What is the impact (potential or actual) of including such a statistic in the story/stories? As part of this activity, you could introduce students to the “Beyond the Original” lesson.

WORLD LANGUAGE

• Civic and political engagement: Have students choose an advocacy issue they are passionate about. Encourage them to find memes around this issue in the target language. Discuss with students: What conventions are utilized that are the same or different from the meme culture aligned with your local/regional context? Are the same images used to create memes in the target language? Based on the conventions they noticed, encourage them to create their own meme in the target language and brainstorm ways they might spread their media messages online to increase visibility around the cause. As part of this activity, you could introduce students to the “Raising Awareness Through Media” lesson.

Dear Parent or Guardian,

I hope you are well. I wanted to take a moment to share about digital citizenship and wellbeing. We’ll be studying this topic over the next few weeks using materials from Meta’s My Digital World program. The lessons are based on academic research and reflect the diverse voices and experiences of young people from around the world.

Digital citizenship and wellbeing refers to the information, behaviors, and skills that help us safely use the internet and other digital tools. This includes the actions that we take to protect ourselves, such as using privacy settings to protect personal information. It also includes making healthy decisions and interacting with other people online.

Understanding digital citizenship and wellbeing can help our children thrive in an increasingly complex and connected digital world. It can help keep them stay safe while empowering them to positively influence their communities. Because of the importance of digital citizenship and wellbeing for our children, I would like to invite you to get involved.

My Digital World features parent resources you can use to help your child learn more about digital citizenship and wellbeing. We encourage you to learn more about the six content pillars of digital citizenship and wellbeing below:

Introduction to Digital Learning: Demonstrating to students what the internet is, identifying information that can be shared over the internet, determining various methods for accessing information online, and identifying the benefits, roles, and responsibilities of digital citizenship.

Digital Foundations: Teaching students how to leverage tools to protect their digital devices and their personal information online, as well as that of others.

Digital Wellness: Supporting students’ ability to engage with others (both individuals and the larger collective) online in empathic and positive ways, protect their physical and mental health, and explore their identities.

Digital Engagement: Helping students develop executive functioning, critical thinking, and the skills needed to evaluate and share media and information online, as well as engage with different cultures and contexts.

Digital Empowerment: Helping students use technology and social media to create positive change and better opportunities for themselves, their communities, and the world.

Digital Opportunities: Preparing students to create the next wave of technology and succeed in their future careers and pathways.

Consider using the conversation starters and activities in the parent section of the website to review digital citizenship and wellbeing concepts with your child. You can find these resources at mydigitalworld.fb.com/mena/.

Digital citizenship and wellbeing skills are important and necessary for our children’s futures. I look forward to working with your child as they learn how to navigate the internet safely and responsibly and thrive in the digital world.

Thank you for your support as we explore this new topic. If you have any questions, please contact me.