Beginner
40 mins
Teacher/Student led
+80 XP
Pupils work on their own device

Welcome: Your Digital Life Online

This lesson introduces the Digital Media Literacy course and its four main strands, leading to a Student Project. Students build a card showing how they use digital tools and apps on a normal day, then the class finds the patterns it has in common.

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    1 - Start ~3 mins

    Illustration for StartWelcome to Digital Media Literacy. Over this course you will get better at four things you already do online:

    1. Understanding your own habits online
    2. Judging what to trust
    3. Following your interests
    4. Sharing your own work online

    Near the end you will do a project of your own that uses all four.

    Key point

    Today you start with your digital footprint. That is a name for all the things you do on phones, computers and consoles in a day. You will make a card about it, using pictures and words.

    2 - Examine and Discuss ~2 mins

    Illustration for Examine and discussPicture a normal school day, from when you wake up to when you go to sleep. Which digital tools do you actually use?

    For example: an alarm on a phone, a group chat on the bus, a quiz on the school laptop, a video while eating, a game before bed. Yours will be different.

    Call out a few of yours. Next, you will put them on a card of your own. Nothing today is graded.

    3 - Hands-on: Make Your Digital Day ~16 mins

    A finished square card made in the card maker. Across the top is the headline Most of my evening is one more round. Under it, the biggest picture is a games controller. Beside it are two smaller pictures, a phone showing a group chat and a pair of headphones. In small text at the bottom is the credit line for the controller, Games controller by Glasswater Images.

    Here is a finished card, made in the card maker below with three pictures from its library and a headline. The games controller is the biggest picture, because that is the habit its maker would find hardest to give up. That picture needs a credit, which is a line saying who made it, so the credit is on the card in small text, added with the Text button. Yours will look different, because it is about your own day, in your own words.

    Now make your card in the activity below.

    This is the card maker. You will use it again later in the course, so here is what everything does.

    The card maker: the tabs on the left, your card in the middle, the settings at the top right

    How the card maker works
    • Pictures tab (on the left): the library opens on the pictures picked for this task. Type in the search box to find something, or open the list that says Picked for this task and choose All themes to see every picture. Tap a picture to put it on your card.

      The Pictures tab, with the search box, the Picked for this task list and the badges

    • Text & boxes tab: Headline adds a big title and Text adds a smaller line. Cover box adds a block you can drag over anything you would rather not show.

      The Text & boxes tab, with a headline placed on the card

    • Your card (in the middle): drag anything to move it. Tap something to choose it, and its settings open in the box at the top right. For a picture, Size makes it bigger or smaller, and Bring to front puts it on top of the others. For words, you can change the words, their size and their colour. Leave Shape on Square today.

      A picture chosen on the card, with Size and Bring to front in the settings

    • The three small buttons above your card, on the right: the curved arrow undoes your last change, the bin deletes the thing you chose, and the down arrow downloads your card as a picture.

      The undo, delete and download buttons above the card

    • Credits tab: every picture on your card is listed here, with the credit line for each one that needs it.

      The Credits tab, listing the credit line for a CREDIT picture

    Which pictures you can use

    You can only use pictures from the card maker's own library. It has no way to add a photo from the internet, or a photo of you.

    Each picture has a badge. FREE means you can use it. CREDIT means you can use it with a credit, which is a line saying who made it. NO means it is not yours to use, and the activity will not let you place it. That is meant to happen, so just pick another. At the end, open Credits and check the credit line for each CREDIT picture.

    A NO picture refusing to go on the card, with its message under the card

    Your card saves as you go, and your teacher can already see it, so you do not need to download it or send it. Your teacher will put three or four on the board next, with the names hidden.

    My digital day

    4 - Hands-on: Our Class Patterns ~13 mins

    Your teacher shows three or four cards on the board without saying whose they are, then builds a class list on the board under three headings: Messaging and social, Video, music and games and School and learning.

    1. Keep your own card open.
    2. Guess whose each card is, and say what gave it away. Guessing wrong is fine: the clues are what count, and they are often habits a lot of the class shares.
    3. Call out one tool, app or habit from your card for the class list, only something you are happy to share. Each heading has a few suggestions your teacher can add with one click, or the class can word its own.
    4. Help the class mark the ones most people have. Your teacher ticks the circle beside each one.

    Your teacher builds the list on the board, so you do not need to type anything in it.

    Our class digital patterns

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