Digital citizenship will be especially important this fall as international journal middle and high school students across the country return to school virtually, in one form or another. Students will be on their devices, communicating, collaborating, and creating with digital tools more than ever before. But amid the pressures of distance learning, we know that educators may not have as much instructional time for things like digital citizenship.

To address this, we’ve pulled together a collection of short digital citizenship activities that students can complete independently, or with parents or caregivers. All the videos and games below emphasize the importance of digital citizenship as a foundation for digital learning.

Watch and Reflect Videos: 15-Minute Activities
Our videos are a great way to spark critical thinking and discussion around a variety of digital citizenship topics. Our “Teen Voices” videos feature interviews with real teens talking about issues they’ve encountered online, from media addiction to online hate speech and more.

Also, we worked with our partners at KQED Education to produce three digital-citizenship-themed episodes for their Above the Noise series. These videos ask big, thought-provoking questions, such as “Does being online actually make us act meaner than we would in person?” before diving into actual scientific research on the topic.

The activities below include links to handouts so students can watch the video and answer the discussion questions independently. You can also take a few minutes of class time to discuss students’ responses and facilitate dialogue about these topics.