Inspiring the Next Generation of Digital Citizens

By Kimberly Bishop

Digital citizenship includes the basic skills and knowledge people need to engage safely and responsibly online. These safety skills give people the power to navigate online spaces safely and confidently take ownership of their digital lives. Learning how to navigate the online world also helps protect kids from cyberbullying, privacy risks, misinformation, harmful content, scams, viruses and more.

Educators need tools and processes to help them provide Cyber Safety education. Now is the perfect time to talk Cyber Safety as students and teachers are diving into back-to-school for the 2023-2024 school year.

To help get appropriate and effective resources into the hands of educators, Norton – a leader in consumer Cyber Safety and part of Gen™ – has teamed up with Discovery Education to create My Digital Life. The My Digital Life resources are created with intention and purpose. Norton is the most recognized Cyber Safety brand globally and part of Gen, a global company with a family of trusted brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender and CCleaner.

Discovery Education is the worldwide EdTech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. Discovery Education’s award-winning K-12 learning platform is a secure place teachers can rely on for lesson plans, engaging and timely content, and useful tools to engage students, track progress and gain professional inspiration every day. Discovery Education offers virtual field trips, videos, ready-to-use resources, podcasts, text, career spotlights, professional learning, social impact initiatives and other vetted services and resources for educators to integrate into lessons.

My Digital Life is a resource center designed specifically for educators in grades 3-8 and includes topics like misinformation, oversharing information and how to stay safe online. The resources encourage responsible online decision-making as students learn to navigate their world and create connections using the fundamentals of digital citizenship and Cyber Safety. The resource center adds value to educators’ experience by providing relevant information in easy-to-utilize formats.

We began our partnership with Discovery Education and the National After-School Association (NAA) in October of 2022, providing a $2.4M investment that will span through 2025 and reach a broad educator and student audience. And that’s just the beginning. New resources are always being added in response to the needs of educators and students and in line with current events. For example, this week we are launching an animated topic series that includes an educator guide with wrap-around resources aligned with U.S. curriculum standards and in November we are expanding the program to the U.K.

Learn more about My Digital Life and how you can integrate it into your curriculum.