This Module focuses on taking active ownership of personal privacy, account defense, and online boundaries. It moves beyond basic safety rules to cover multi-factor authentication (MFA), privacy and hardware audits, spot-checking synthetic deception (AI deepfakes), protecting personally identifiable information (PII), and taking positive upstander action against cyberbullying.

Content:

This Module equips students with self-awareness tools to build healthy, intentional relationships with technology. It contrasts active, creative screen use with passive, mindless scrolling, examines psychological app mechanics like infinite scroll and variable reward loops, and provides concrete strategies to protect sleep, self-esteem, and real-world relationships. 

Content:

This Module prepares students to critically navigate an information landscape driven by recommendation algorithms and generative AI. Learners explore how algorithms track attention to maximize ad revenue, practice lateral reading across independent tabs to verify source provenance, and evaluate credibility as a gradient rather than an all-or-nothing switch.

Content:

This Module frames the digital world and physical world as the exact same community. It empowers students to move beyond passive "slacktivism" by using digital tools for real-world civic impact, designing accessible media (such as adding alt-text and video captions), auditing AI systems for hidden societal bias, and practicing civil discourse.

Content:

These Modules were created leveraging Google's Gemini Notebook. The following sources were included:

• DiFranzo, D., Choi, Y. H., Purington, A., Taft, J. G., Whitlock, J., & Bazarova, N. N. (2019). Social Media TestDrive: Real-world social media education for the next generation. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–11). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300533

• Everyday Speech. (n.d.). Cyber safety activity for middle school: Safe or unsafe? Everyday Speech. https://everydayspeech.com/

• Governor's Office for Children, & Child Mind Institute. (n.d.). Digital wellness playbook: Helping Maryland's teens build a healthier relationship with technology. State of Maryland.

• #ICANHELP. (n.d.). Teach digital citizenship, safety, and wellness with Digital4Good. Digital4Good. https://www.icanhelp.net/curriculum

• IREX. (2023). A media literacy: Curriculum guide for teachers. IREX & Columbia Public Schools.

• Lincoln Public Schools. (n.d.). LPS high school digital citizenship implementation plan. Lincoln Public Schools Library Services.

• Lincoln Public Schools. (n.d.). LPS middle school digital citizenship implementation plan. Lincoln Public Schools Library Services.

• Lindsey, L., & Mattson, K. (2026). Edvolve digital citizenship curricular framework: PK-12 curricular guidance (2nd ed.). Edvolve. https://www.teachdigcit.com/framework

• Mattson, K. (2024). Resource round-up. Teach DigCit. https://www.teachdigcit.com/resourceroundup

• Mattson, K. (2024). Teach DigCit with these classroom-ready resources. Teach DigCit. https://www.teachdigcit.com/classroomresources

• Mattson, K., & Lindsey, L. (2024). Digital citizenship curricular framework for PK-12 (2nd ed.). Teach DigCit. https://www.teachdigcit.com/framework

• Susan Crown Exchange. (2022). Do: Activities & curriculum for youth digital well-being. Youth Digital Well-Being. https://www.youthdigitalwellbeing.org/do

• Whitehead, T. (2018). Media literacy: Teacher resource (Ages 11–18). Britannica Digital Learning & Scoilnet.

AI Assistance Disclosure:

Google’s Gemini Notebook was used as a collaborative tool in the development of this curriculum project. Specifically, the AI model was used to synthesize uploaded source documents, draft student-facing video outlines across the four Edvolve strands, generate randomized multiple-choice assessment items, and assist with APA citation formatting. All AI-generated outlines, questions, and citations were audited, verified against primary sources, and edited by the human author.