In an increasingly digital world where children and youth are expected to use digital tools for purposes of education, information, social connection, and entertainment, digital citizenship education is of vital importance to empower and protect young people online. The Empower MEdia program will engage students in grades 5-7 with important topics on digital citizenship in ways that encourage creativity, exploration, acquisition of new knowledge and empowerment. Topics may include but are not limited to: health and well-being online, privacy, safety, digital footprint, digital commerce, identity, relationships, communication/etiquette, cyberbullying, news/media literacy and social media wellness.
The SFU Surrey – TD Community Engagement Centre has partnered with the Surrey School District Community School’s Partnership Department to develop and implement “Empower MEdia”, an after-school program focusing on digital citizenship for kids in grades 5-7. This project is being supported by a grant from CIRA’s Community Investment Program.
Empower MEdia adopts a mentor-mentee approach in delivering the lessons in the classroom. The program supervisor provides the instruction, the mentors then facilitate activities, discussions, and games that are assigned to individuals or groups of mentees during class time and support them in challenges they might face.
Currently, the course covers the topics of Reading Media, Media Representation, Finding and verifying online information, Ethics and Empathy, Online Privacy and Security, Media Health and Well being, Community Engagement and Making and Remixing.
Given that our aim is to EMPOWER children to navigate safely in the digital space, we designed a new module about Artificial Intelligence, because we taught it is necessary to gain basic knowledge about AI as a technology that is now a part of social media and daily lives of many students.