This exciting project was founded in 2008 by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, who, along with Barbara Stefanics, founded the Flat Classroom Project. The Digiteen Project is a “global hands-on project for middle and early high school students (typically Grade 6-9, 11-15 year old).” Let’s learn more …
As noted on the Digiteen website, this project “allows young people (and their teachers) to study and explore digital citizenship and how to be a responsible and reliable online learner.” Topics of study include digital: access, communications, literacy, security and safety, etiquette, rights and responsibilities, law, health and wellness, and commerce.
Students from around the globe come together to research current topics, write a collaborative report on a wiki, and perform and document offline action educational projects to promote effective digital citizenship at their local schools. The purpose of the project is to educate on and promote effective Digital Citizenship and responsible online choices. The framework of topics for this project is taken from Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey (published by ISTE). It is recommend that you read this book before starting the project so that you have a good understanding of the nine topics that we use to organize this project. Depending on the size of the group, these topics are studied in terms of tweens, teens, and adults. The topics are studied by collaboratively researching, writing, and posting the work through two digital portals: the Digiteen educational network (also called the Ning) and the Digiteen wiki. Next, students prepare an Action Project. Finally, students are evaluated by their home teacher and share their learning through an online summit (the summit is optional). For more information on Project Structure, Prerequisites for Completing the Project, and further Resources, check out the Digiteen Project New Teacher Guide.
The project occurs three times a year with many classrooms around the world and thousands of students. There are two parts to the project:
- Global collaboration on research and sharing resources via a wiki, including ongoing discussion and interaction between global classrooms via the wiki and Ning
- A school-based local project that takes the new knowledge about Digital Citizenship and implements something within the school community that will raise awareness and make a difference.
The project founders note that “digital behaviors are virally spread between teens, so it makes sense that an improvement in digital behaviors should also be spread virally (emphasis added) between teens globally and within their own schools. This project harnesses the power of the social network to help students of all ages make wise choices in a way that also promotes twenty first century learning skills and higher order thinking.”
For more information on this project, check out the Free Flyers section of this page.
Our Editorial: This is one impressive project! We applaud the way it:
- Encourages young people to be responsible digital citizens using the philosophy of think globally, act locally;
- Draws upon young people’s knowledge about these critical issues and gives them a “voice”;
- Encourages peer mentoring, with young people learning from one another at both the local and global level, yet within a safe, protected, mediated environment;
- Promotes 21st century skills which have value beyond the school environment;
- And, as Julie Lindsay notes (see the flyer), turns “the concept of digital safety on its head … because Digiteen focuses on being proactive rather than reactionary or defensive. It gives students the opportunity to be aware of and control their own online lives, enhancing their online learning. When students understand why they need to be responsible and reliable digital citizens, the idea becomes viral as they share the concept with their peers.” Now that’s a message worth sharing.
Mon, Aug 2, 2010
Global Perspective, Problem Solvers and Solutions, Youth Voices