Author: George Milliken

post by andy mclaugjlin, what is digital literacy

What is Digital Literacy? A guest blog from Andy McLaughlin, University of Aberdeen

The presentation in this post was created and shared by Andy McLaughlin; a lecturer at the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen. He is a former teacher and leader in schools where he had a particular interest in digital pedagogies. Andy has been exploring the misalignment between national policy and classroom practice when it comes to developing digital skills in schools, and casting a critical eye over the influence of ‘Big Tech’ on education.

The following presentation was recently delivered to Education Scotland’s Digital Literacy exploration group as a provocation for discussion around Digital Literacies. In it, Andy shared some interesting research that has been carried out recently around the world.

If you would like to know more, or get in touch with Andy, you can find him on LinkedIn with this link.

 

family learning cyber aberdeen

Supporting Children in the Digital World: a user story from Aberdeen City Council Family Learning

This guest blog post was provided by the Community Learning and Development team at Aberdeen City Council.

Supporting Children in the Digital World is a four week course developed by CLD Family Learning Aberdeen to help parents keep their children safe online and develop strategies to manage device usage.

 

The course was created in response to a need identified by parents/carers who wanted to understand the technology their children using.

Over the course of four weeks we cover:

  • The technology children and young people are using
  • Digital footprints and being a good digital role model
  • Understand the risk and reward of devices
  • Know how to respond to negative online experiences
  • Discover age appropriate online safety resources
  • Learn about online safety strategies

The aim of the course is to ensure parents feel more empowered to manage device usage in their homes and give their children the skills to self-regulate and make good decisions while online.

We deliver this course to parents/carers in Aberdeen out in the community as well as online, to ensure we can reach as many parents/carers as possible.

 

One parent who attended the course said:

“I feel a lot happier that I now have the skills and information to tackle internet safety with my child, and will be a lot more relaxed having conversations which will in turn will benefit my child and make them more likely to approach me when they need support.”

 

We are further developing the course to create two one off information sessions, for those who cannot commit to the full four weeks. One of these one off sessions will focus on pre-school children and device usage and the other will be a more general information session condensing the content of the original course.

If you would like to know more, get in touch with the team by email: familylearning@aberdeencity.gov.uk

What Digital learning might look like

Digital Literacy projects and resources

This section contains some recommended project-based learning resources and activities that teachers might use with learners who are secure in their digital competencies from the previous page.

Digital literacy moves beyond the technical competencies in the Learner Digital Skills Toolkit and develops into critical and social skills that are relevant and representative of the realities that people live (Marín & Castañeda). In short, digital literacy should enable people to fulfil the four capacities and participate fully in society.

These resources are designed to cover a combination of the three digital literacy Experiences and Outcomes. 

back to digital literacy home

4 capacities

Resources

Learning with Data – Data Education in Schools

Lessons | Project Real

Living In A Digital World – Daydream Believers

Assemblies & Lessons – TechSheCan

Make It Happen

Primary Computing Resources | Barefoot Computing

Digital Ethics | iDEA

Learning Center – Apple Education Community

cyber resilience

Cyber resilience – learner digital skills toolkit

Learners should understand the risks of being online and the cyber security steps they should take to reduce these risks. They should know how to set up accounts and devices securely and how to report and recover from any risks they encounter.

This learning covers Experience and Outcome x-03a. 

back to digital literacy

safe and secure mindmap

Where to start

BBC Bitesize has useful information on how computers and the internet work.

Go to BBC Bitesize

 

Visit the Barclays Digital Wings site to view tutorials and learning resources for fundamental digital skills. This requires a login with email, name and password – teachers should check their data protection policy before registering learners.

Go to Barclays Digital Wings

Get started online

Cyber secure

learn my way

Learn My Way is a website of free online learning for beginners, helping you develop digital skills to make the most of the online world. Some aspects of this page may require a login – teachers should check their data protection policy before registering learners.

go to Learn My Way site

CyberFirst is the national cyber security education programme from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Their CyberSprinters game and teaching resources is an easy place to get started with cyber.
Go to CyberSprinters

cyber toolkit

Our Cyber Toolkit provides more practical advice on teaching learners about staying safe and secure when online.

Go to Cyber Toolkit

Every secondary school has copies of Your Money Matters textbooks and resources:
Go to Your Money Matters Scotland

Learner Digital Skills Toolkit: where to start when planning digital literacy in Curriculum for Excellence

The support document aims to make clear the digital knowledge and skills that learners require to be digitally competent. Being digitally competent means being able to use the most common devices and apps. It is an essential step to becoming digitally literate.

Being digitally literate means being able to independently use and critically engage with digital technology and society, such as data literacy and information literacy. We are developing guidance to support educators deliver this.

Ideas and resources for teaching digital literacy can also be found here: Digital Literacy for Learners.

This document is part of a series, view the other documents here: Digital Literacy Series

Please use this form to provide feedback on the document with this link:

Learner Digital Skills Toolkit feedback form (MS Forms)

 

  back to Learner Digital Literacy

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cyber week 26th february, ai week 25th march, digital literacy week 13th may

Digital Weeks 2023/24

We’ve got some exciting dates for your calendar this school session. 

Join us for:

Each week will have teacher training and professional learning opportunities and live lessons for teachers and learners to join in with.

Keep an eye on this page and our comms for more info and updates closer to the dates.

CyberFirst S2 Girls Competition

CyberFirst S2 Girls Competition 2023 Results

The CyberFirst Girls Competition aims to inspire girls interested in technology to pursue a career in cyber security.

The competition is a team event. Each team, of four girls in S2, tackles challenges from cryptography and logic to artificial intelligence and networking for the chance to be crowned cyber security champions.

Well done to everyone who took part but a special congratulations to the top 10 scoring Scottish schools and St Kentigern’s Academy from West Lothian who were this year’s top Scottish school!

Top 10 schools in Scotland for S2 Girls CyberFirst Competition 2023

  1. St Kentigern’s Academy  
  2. Girvan Academy  
  3. Hyndland Secondary School  
  4. Glasgow Gaelic School  
  5. Marr College  
  6. James Gillespie’s High School  
  7. Perth High School  
  8. Pitlochry High School  
  9. Stirling High School  
  10. Carluke High School  

Education Scotland is the proud regional partner with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) CyberFirst programme.

Find out more about our work and how your school can register to be a recognised CyberFIrst school here: about CyberFirst partnership.

Streaming and Video

  go to cyber resilience toolkit home

Gaming, streaming and videos covers a wide range of apps and services. This section provides information on the most common ones and covers:

  • main features of the services
  • potential risks
  • how to setup an account
  • using platform settings to manage risk
  • how to report harmful conduct

Main features

Games are traditionally played on consoles and PCs but increasingly on mobile devices, such as tablets and phones. View our Games Hub for advice on Playstation, Xbox and Apple Arcade.

Video and streaming platforms, such as TikTok, Twitch and YouTube are used to view other people’s content or create and share your own.

All of these platforms are primarily used to consume content but also offer the chance to follow and friend other users and interact with them through direct messages and live chats.

Increasingly these are for brands or individual ‘influencers’. They usually post short videos (sometimes live), photos and short pieces of text.

Main features

Games are traditionally played on consoles and PCs but increasingly on mobile devices, such as tablets and phones. View our Games Hub for advice on Playstation, Xbox and Apple Arcade.

Video and streaming platforms, such as TikTok, Twitch and YouTube are used to view other people’s content or create and share your own.

All of these platforms are primarily used to consume content but also offer the chance to follow and friend other users and interact with them through direct messages and live chats.

Increasingly these are for brands or individual ‘influencers’. They usually post short videos (sometimes live), photos and short pieces of text.

How to set up an account

Almost any app will require the same details to create an account and access its content:

  • username (usually an email or the phone’s linked Google or Apple account)
  • password

There may be requests for additional information, such as name, address or phone number – these are not always required.

These links explain how to register for and set up an account on the most popular platforms:

  • our Games Hub
  • Twitch
  • TikTok
  • YouTube

  • Using platform settings to manage risk

    Each platform will have a setting for security and privacy – this can be used to control a number of aspects, including:

    • who can see posts or media
    • who can contact or follow you

    These links explain how to use settings to reduce the potential risks of unwanted contact, being tagged in abusive or bullying content, or seeing inappropriate or unwanted content on the most popular platforms:

  •  

    • How to report harmful conduct

      If a user thinks they have been potentially harmed on the platform they should be aware of how to report this to the platform and potentially the police and trusted adults.

      These links explain how to report users and content on the most popular platforms:

  •