Teaching digital literacy to young kids is hard. Most of them are not on social media yet where a lot of digital literacy and citizenship teachings focus on, so teaching this concept to little ones can be tricky. Although, I have heard a lot of younger kids mention that they are active on some Kids Messenger app, either way, teaching digital literacy is essential in the classroom.

I am an elementary focused teacher. I taught kindergarten and will be teaching grade 2/3 this upcoming school year. In kindergarten, my students didn’t use much technology. I tried to incorporate the SMART Board into most lessons, but with technology like iPads, there just simply wasn’t enough for everyone. That didn’t stop our conversations about using technology at home though. Most of the students had a tablet of some sort or shared with siblings they played games on. Mostly our talks were about learning focused games, but others involved some sort of shooting/killing. Whenever I hear or see students reenacting those kinds of games, and yes that even happens as early as kindergarten, I always use it as a teaching moment. Why we shouldn’t play those kinds of games at school and how it would be scary if there was any of that at school is usually the focus of those conversations. Reflecting on the many conversations I’ve had with students about what is school appropriate and what’s not, reminded me of Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis’s article “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online”. This article speaks about different ways the media can manipulate just about anyone. It got me thinking about how easy it could be to manipulate young kids playing games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Among Us, or any of the other games they play online. A lot of these games have the option to play with or against people and a lot of the time it’s strangers. I think as an educator, it’s important to have conversations surrounding this type of digital literacy and manipulation playing these types of games. Even if it’s not a directed lesson, I think it is still a way to teach digital literacy.

At any age, students discuss current events. Whenever this would happen in classrooms I was in, I would turn their conversation into a whole group discussion. This happened a lot with COVID, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the whole Regina Public Schools being hacked, etc., kids knew what was going on. Whether or not they had correct information was another thing. I think it’s important as a teacher to take those conversations and turn it into an opportunity of learning digital literacy. Making sure their aware that it’s easy to spread fake news online. Incorporating little activities like Facticious, Break the Fake, and examining articles like the Tree Octopus, are great ways to teach digital literacy in the classroom.

Overall, I think it is important for teachers to discuss and examine concepts of digital literacy in the classroom. Having the goal to provide students knowledge and resources like Sweet Search instead of scaring them in terms of trust and technology should be the focus of these teachings especially in elementary years where students will be starting their journey as digital citizens.