Author: George Milliken

digital schools award

Digital Schools Award Scotland (DSAS)

Digital Schools Awards is a national awards scheme to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology in schools.

The Digital Schools Award Scotland (DSAS) programme helps schools assess progress and recognise excellence in the use of digital technology at nursery, primary, special education and secondary level while providing practical support and encouragement.

Discover how the digital schools award framework can support your setting to lead digital learning, teaching and assessment.

digital school

Back to Leadership and Awards

Learn more

DSAS Validation

Hear from one of the Digital Schools Award for Scotland validators, Catherine Cunningham share an overview of the purpose and structure of the award framework and criteria.  Catherine provides helpful advice and top tips from starting your journey in registering for the award through to the validation visit and what to expect.

Tullialan Nursery School, Fife

Hear from Amanda Sloper, DHT, share how the framework helped transform the culture and how digital is now embedded across the early level curriculum.

Fintry Primary, Dundee

Hear from Jayne Mays a class teacher and digital leader share her insights and top tips into how the DSAS framework transformed and supported practitioners to embed digital learning across the primary curriculum.  Jayne will also share how the school have continued to provide innovate digital learning experiences for all their learners.

Braes High, Falkirk

tech she can

TechSheCan – Resources and Industry Partners

About Tech She Can

At Tech She Can, the tech careers charity with member organisations spanning +40 sectors, we’re on a mission to increase the number of women and girls pursuing tech careers. We work at the very beginning, nurturing and inspiring the future talent pipeline, investing in the long-term with our free schools’ programme and at the later stages too, plugging the immediate skills gap.

 

About Tech We Can

Our Tech We Can resources have inspired tens of thousands of children to consider a future career in technology. We’re particularly focused on reaching underrepresented groups, and children and young people in social mobility ‘cold spots’ across the UK.

Through our live assemblies and learning materials, children explore the latest technologies, find out about the breadth of careers in tech and discover how these jobs link to their own passions and interests. We offer:

  • Downloadable Lesson packs for teachers or parents to use at home or in the classroom, with no registration or log-in;
  • Cross-curricular On-demand lessons for age +8yrs;
  • Award-winning Animated lessons for age +5yrs;
  • Live Assemblies – sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media for updates;
  • Tech We Can Champions, our national volunteer scheme, placing real-life tech role models in classrooms across the UK. Request a Champion visit here

finding and checking

Finding and checking – learner digital skills toolkit

Learners should know how web browsers and search engines work and how this might affect their search results. They should also understand that anyone can publish anything on the internet and that they should check the reliability and integrity of any information they find.

They should be able to use ‘common apps’, such as Edge, Chrome or Safari browsers and be able to use the search bar, or a search site, to find information using search phrases and controls to make the results more accurate.

This learning covers Experience and Outcome x-02a. 

back to digital literacy

skills for finding and checking

Developing beyond basic use of the web and search engines to find information, learners should develop their information and media literacy alongside their digital skills. 

Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to develop informed views and to engage fully with society. (Scottish Media and Information Literacy CoP (2024))

go to the Cyber Toolkit for advice and guidance on Information and Media Literacy

Browsing the web and finding information

BBC Bitesize has useful information on how technology can be used to find information.

Go to BBC Bitesize

This section focuses on the basic knowledge and skills required to use the most common devices and software to access, browse and search the web.

Barclays Digital Wings

Internet essentials

Social media basics

 

Starting to think about online information

gcf global media resources

GCF Global has a range of tutorials on information and media literacy.

Go to GCF Global

project real resources

Project Real is a free resources for educators to teach information and media literacy.

Go to Project Real

share checklist

Project Real also makes use of the SHARE checklist for learners to consider before sharing any online information:

  • Source
  • Headline
  • Analyse
  • Retouched
  • Error

Go to the SHARE Checklist

What next? (for teachers)

Building on the previous digital knowledge and skills, digitally literate learners should take a critical approach to the information they find online and consider the accuracy and validity of the information, as well as who created it and their reason for doing so. This aspect of digital literacy can be considered Information and Media Literacy and cuts across a wide range of curricular areas.

Teacher who want to know more, might find these links useful:

An in-depth analysis of what children are watching online and why can be found in the Ofcom reports go to Ofcom

More information on media and information literacy here:

Media and Information Literacy Alliance

UNESCO Media and Information Literacy

What next? (for learners)

The Ferret Fact Service is a Scottish fact-checking service and accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.

Go to the Ferret Fact Service

 

Project Real is a series of lesson plans and resources for six lessons, each focussed on the government SHARE guidelines and covering a different element of online misinformation.  

Go to Project Real

 

Microsoft Teams Search Coach is useful to help learners evaluate the reliability of search results.

Go to Microsoft Search Coach

 

making and sharing

Making and sharing – learner digital skills toolkit

Learners should understand how computers store and are able to share content.  

They should be able to use ‘common apps’, such as O365 or Adobe Express to create documents, edit media and share this content in class. 

This learning covers Experience and Outcome x-01a. 

back to digital literacy

digital skills for making and sharing

Where to start

BBC Bitesize has useful information on how technology can be used to create media and how the computer stores this, making it easy to edit and share.

Go to BBC Bitesize

This section focuses on the basic knowledge and skills required to use the most common office productivity and collaboration software.

Barclays Digital Wings

Getting started with Emails

Learn Microsoft Outlook

Video conferencing basics

Explore Google Workspace

Explore Google Meet

 

Learn Microsoft OneDrive: File storage and collaboration

Learn Microsoft Word

Learn Microsoft PowerPoint

Learn Microsoft Excel

Learn Microsoft Teams

GCF Global has a range of tutorials on using the Microsoft O365 and Google Workspace productivity suites which can be used to create a range of documents.

Go to GCF Global

Adobe Express can be used to create and edit images, videos and PDFs.

Go to Adobe Express

daydream believers logo

Although not digital, Daydream Believers’ projects provide relevant and engaging design briefs that learners can tackle with their digital skills.

Go to Daydream Believers

Learning with Digital

Learning with Digital – learner digital literacy theme

 

This page outlines some of the key digital literacy skills and knowledge that learners could make effective use of in the classroom. This ranges from being able to upload, share and collaborate on platforms like Teams and Classroom to using platforms like SeeSaw and Showbie to journal and share their learning.

Back to learner digital literacy 

Digital Learner diagram (landscape)

 

Where to start

Learners should be able to:

  • use digital devices and platforms to communicate, collaborate and share information online
  • find, manage and store digital information and content securely

See more information on this in the accordion menus below (click to expand the blue bars):

Using Glow to communicate, collobarate and store information

Glow provides access to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace productivity suites allowing learners to practice and develop the skills and knowledge required to use these for learning, life and work.

Support for teachers with the fundamentals of these platforms can be found on the Teacher Digital Skills page:
go to Teacher Digital Skills page

What skills and knowledge should I start with?

Teachers should consider creating a ‘pencil case’ of essential tools they expect learners to use in the daily or weekly course of learning. This will reduce the choice overload (Baymer and Thomson, 2015) of apps and the cognitive load (TES/EEF, 2023) of content knowledge on learners. An example of this might be:

  • Teams for distributing learning
  • Whiteboard to collaborate and share ideas with peers
  • Stream to screen record a demonstration of a skill for teacher feedback or self-assessment
  • OneDrive to create and store documents, such as Word or PowerPoint
  • Immersive Reader screen read-aloud feature to support learners with reading on screen

What next?

There are further examples and contexts in the accordion menus below (click to expand the blue bars):

Communication

bbc bitesize

The first aspect to consider is how learners can use Glow and other online platforms to connect, contact and communicate with each other. Are they using email, direct messaging or video calls? How are these skills useful in learning, life and work?

What are digital communication systems? – BBC Bitesize

go to Cyber Toolkit for advice and guidance on communication

Collaboration

tech she can

 

 

 

 

 

Using cloud drives, such as OneDrive (Microsoft) and Drive (Google), learners can create and share content with peers, teachers and even learners in other schools or countries. Not only can they be shared, they can be co-created and edited at the same time on multiple computers at once! How is this useful for life, learning and work?

Collaborating using IT – BBC Bitesize

Tech She Can has a short video explaining how cloud computing works for younger learners:

Tech for Katie and Tex explore the cloud (techshecan.org)

Literacy & English

When planning learning around the functional tools in Glow, it is worth considering their purpose and application. Text-based documents, such as Word, Docs, PowerPoint and Slides might lend themselves to Literacy & English Es and Os:

  • When creating documents (writing a text) consider the impact of layout and presentation 
  • Make use of lettering, graphics and other features to engage readers

Typing is a useful, but not essential, skill in modern digital literacy. Teachers might plan some typing practice as part of this functional suite of learning in order to enable learners to use them more effectively:

Dance Mat Typing for 7 – 11 year olds – BBC Bitesize

go to the Literacy Trust website for more examples and information

Numeracy & mathematics

numeracy and maths experiences and outcomes

When planning learning around the functional tools in Glow, it is worth considering their purpose and application. Text-based documents, such as Excel and Sheets might lend themselves to numeracy & Mathematics: 

  • When displaying data, consider the use of spreadsheets, graphs or tables to create clear visual representations 

Creating and understanding charts and graphs – BBC Bitesize

 go to the Joint Mathematical Council report on digital tools for maths

Microsoft and Google app tutorials

These two collections of tutorials may support teachers develop skills with the Microsoft and Google suites of apps:

go to the free Microsoft Office Tutorials at GCFGlobal

 

go to the free Google Tutorials at GCFGlobal

navigating devices and apps

Navigating devices and apps – learner digital skills toolkit

Learners should understand how computers and apps work, how to control them and solutions to simple issues, like resetting them.  

They should be able to use common inputs, such as keyboards, mice and touchscreens, to find their way around the device, including opening and using apps and changing settings to make it easier to use.

This learning covers Experience and Outcome x-01a. 

back to digital literacy

navigating devices and apps mindmap

Where to start

 

This section focuses on the knowledge and skills that learners need to use devices and apps.

BBC Bitesize has useful information on how computers work, including how to categorise inputs and outputs.

Go to BBC Bitesize

This section focuses on the basic knowledge and skills required to use the most common devices and software.

Barclays Digital Wings

How to use a computer

Android essentials

Explore accessible technology

Master smartphone photography

Streaming essentials

GCF Global has a range of tutorials on using the Microsoft O365 and Google Workspace productivity suites.

Go to GCF Global

tech she can

After learning about what computers and digital technology is, and how they work, learners could investigate how technology is used in a range of industries. These resources from Tech She Can are free to use and easily adapted to suit different ages and stages:

Lesson packs – TechSheCan

 

CALL Scotland has resources and information to support accessibility and how to use a device’s settings to make it easier to use.

Go to CALL Scotland