Category: Learner Digital Literacy

the skills and knowledge taught to learners

Create-A_Long comic book with custom images

Create-A-Long Activities – Create a custom comic book

Communicate visually wit colourful graphics to tell a story, explain a concept, summarise a plot, or show how a pattern can be represented visually.

Comics can be a great way for learners to showcase their storytelling skills, explain concepts, and visually represent a concept. For learners with limited or no communication skills, this can be an excellent way to have them contribute to the wider conversation in class.

For this activity we have used a modified version of the Create a Comic Activity from the  Everyone Can Create Apple Teacher Learning Centre section.  

image of an iPad with a comic book literacy example

For this activity we used

an iPad, Apple Pencil, pages app, adobe express icons

We used an iPad, an Apple Pencil, Pages, and Adobe Express using our Glow Scotland credentials. Whilst these are very specific examples we appreciate that not every school has access to these resources. An alternative might be to use a web based tool such as Book Creator which has excellent comic book templates and Pixabay which has free to download graphics. 

Step 1: Create-a-long: Download the Activity

YouTube player

 

Step 2: Create-a-long: Create Your Characters

YouTube player

 

Step 3: Create-a-long: Put your comic book together

YouTube player

 

Now that you have tried all of the steps and put the comic together, you have developed the skills in your learners to apply this knowledge in different situations. Using comic book style activities can be a great way to Visualise concepts, retell failure Argos from history with custom characters, or even explaining concepts like the water cycle in new and engaging ways. 

Try it yourself and feel free to share your stories of success with us via social media:

Bluesky: @digilearnscot.bsky.social

boy girl jump device

#SDLW24 Video Recap series

Below is a playlist that shows the Curriculum Live Lessons, Professional Learning, and sharing practice sessions that were delivered as part of Scottish Digital Literacy week 2024.

Continue to share the amazing work that is taking place in your settings and be sure to mention us @digilearnscot using #SDLW24

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

safe and secure

Safe and secure – 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-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

This section focuses on the basic knowledge and skills required to setup and get started with the most common devices and how to keep them more secure.

Barclays Digital Wings

Get started online

Cyber secure

 

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

The SQA Academy has a series of FREE, simple and interactive guides for spending money online:
Got to SQA Acadamy Digital Learning Guides

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

Text on left, sound icon on right.

Explore Winter Sounds inside and out (early level)

The sound of Christmas

 

What does Christmas sound like?

What does it sound like outside?

What does it sound like indoors? 

 

 

 

Use your senses to see, touch, smell and HEAR everything that means CHRISTMAS to you!

Once you have identified the sound of Christmas, capture this in an audio recording and then invite your friends to listen to the recording and try to identify the sound you have captured.

Will they identify the sound correctly, or will they need a clue?

Different ways to capture audio:

  • Talking button/postcard, recordable microphone, karaoke machine, Dictaphone, talking/recordable toys.
  • Recording audio on an iPad with built in apps Voice Memo or GarageBand
  • Recording audio on a Chromebook with Vocaroo | Online voice recorder (website will work on any browser/device with Microphone access permission)
  • Recording audio on a Windows device with built in Voice recorder
  • Recording an audio clip in Microsoft Sway with record audio
  • Recording an audio clip in Scratch Jr app with sound blocks (play video at 38 seconds)
You may be required to adjust privacy settings to enable your microphone to work.

Try it for yourself and share your audio creations with us on social media @digilearnscot

 

 

What digital literacy might look like clpl programme

This is… What Digital Literacy Might Look Like (Developing Your Curriculum)

This programme aims to support teachers develop their own digital literacy curriculum. It will explore the skills that learners need for life, learning and work. Teachers will then be able to evaluate staff training, classroom and lesson resourcing and school improvement needs based on this.

Educators need to attend the first session but can then select to attend any, or all, of the following sessions.

This CLPL will run before and, then be repeated, after the Christmas holiday.

Digital Learner diagram (landscape)

Webinars

Sign up for sessions using the Eventbrite links below:

This is… What Digital Literacy Might Look Like intro session 05 September

This is… What Digital Literacy Might Look Like intro session [repeat] 12 September

This is WDLMLL: living with digital 26 September

This is WDLMLL: learning with digital 31 October

This is WDLMLL: creativity with digital 14 November

This is WDLMLL: finding information with digital 28 November

This is WDLMLL: being safe and secure with digital 05 December

SIgnups for 2024 are not available yet

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Living with Digital

Living with Digital – learner digital literacy theme: ELC

This page outlines the digital literacy skills and knowledge that learners should have to participate fully in the modern world. This ranges from awareness of digital devices, platforms and services and how they affect our lives to being able to troubleshoot common issues with technology.

 

Back to ELC learner digital literacy

Digital Learner diagram (landscape)

learner digtial literacy planning support document

 

The Digital Literacy Planning Support documents are examples of how educators might plan learner digital literacy learning. The documents identify the Technologies Experience and Outcome, a theme to apply this, suggestions of the skills and knowledge that that might be delivered, and links to some resources that might be relevant.

Living with Digital (the world around them)

Below are suggestions on how educators might set a context for learning digital literacy skills and knowledge:

Scottish Government policy
 

chnaging nation scottish government policy 2021

“Scotland’s future will be forged in a digital world. It’s a world in which data and digital technologies are transforming every element of our nation and our lives – people, place, economy and government.”
(Scottish Government, 2021)

It might be worth exploring some of the features of this policy with learners and considering the impact of an evermore digital world.

 

What are computers?
 

bbc bitesize

Without going too far into Computing Science (a specific Technologies organiser within CfE) it is important to understand the basics of how computers and other digital devices work.

These BBC Bitesize pages are a great place to start:
What is a computer system? – BBC Bitesize (first level)
What is the internet? – BBC Bitesize (first level)
Input and output – BBC Teach (second level)
Computer networks – BBC Teach (second level)

 

 

Technology shaping the world
 

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

 

 

Environmental impact of technology use
 

bbc bitesize

All of the devices and technology we use has two obvious environmental impacts – the raw materials to make (which then need recycled again) and the energy to power them. There are lots of activities and lesson ideas on this page about Sustainability that could be linked into learning about device manufacture, energy consumption and eventual disposal.
Could your learners reimagine or improve this cycle?

2nd level Learning for Sustainability – BBC Bitesize

This page on the BBC Future site has some fascinating reading with lots of information and statistics for teachers. Do you know the CO2 emissions of sending emails and direct messages or watching a video on YouTube? There’s facts and figures that could be used to create challenges for learners to consider and solve:

 Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think – BBC Future

 

 

Living with Digital (their own knowledge and skills)
Evaluating their own skills and knowledge

Learners’ own digital literacy skills and knowledge  

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting: diagnosing and solving technical problems with devices and platforms 

Accessibioity and usability features

Usability features: using devices, platforms and services’ features to make them easier to use (accessibility) 

Learning with Digital

Learning with Digital – learner digital literacy theme: ELC

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 ELC learner digital literacy

Digital Learner diagram (landscape)

Professional learning

digital pencil case webinar 11 may 4pm

Developing Your Learners’ Digital ‘Pencil Case’ is the corresponding professional learnign to support teachers plan, teach and assess this set of digital literacy skills and knowledge.

Supoprting documents

learner digtial literacy planning support document

The Digital Literacy Planning Support documents are examples of how educators might plan learner digital literacy learning. The documents identify the Technologies Experience and Outcome, a theme to apply this, suggestions of the skills and knowledge that that might be delivered, and links to some resources that might be relevant.

It may be useful to make a distinction between the functional ‘office-based’ platforms available in Glow, like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, and the wide range of devices and apps available to create multimedia content. Although designed for professional use these platforms can be utilised for learning too.

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

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

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

Microsoft and Google app tutorials

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

Free Microsoft Office Tutorials at GCFGlobal
Free Google Tutorials at GCFGlobal