Library Lady’s K-12 Edition is a mostly weekly newsletter for K-12 school librarians. Today’s topic is — Teaching Digital Citizenship
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Teaching Digital Citizenship: Simple Lessons for Digital Citizenship Week
Digital citizenship used to be fairly easy to summarize:
- Don’t share your password.
- Don’t talk to strangers online.
- Be nice.
Those things still matter, but our students’ digital lives have become much more complicated.
They’re encountering social media, group chats, online games, algorithms, misinformation, advertising, digital footprints, AI-generated content, and tools that collect information about them.
So during Digital Citizenship Week, instead of trying to cover everything, choose one important question and give students time to think about it.
Here are a few possibilities.
For Younger Students: What Should Stay Private?
Give students examples of information and ask them to sort each one into:
OKAY TO SHARE
or
KEEP PRIVATE
Try:
- Favorite color
- Favorite book
- Password
- Home address
- Favorite animal
- Phone number
- Hobby
- Parent’s credit card number
For slightly older students, add a third category:
IT DEPENDS
That’s where some of the best conversations happen.
Try This Resource: Common Sense Education
Common Sense Education Digital Citizenship Curriculum
Common Sense offers free K–12 digital citizenship and digital literacy lessons covering privacy and safety, digital footprints, relationships and communication, cyberbullying, information and media literacy, healthy technology habits, and more. Its newer curriculum also incorporates AI and social media.
If library time is short, check out its Quick Digital Citizenship Lessons. Many are video-based and designed to take 20 minutes or less. Common Sense Media
For K–2, I especially like the simplicity of the Digital Citizens characters. They introduce ideas such as kindness, safety, media balance, digital footprints, standing up for others, and determining whether information is true. Common Sense Media
For Elementary Students: Would You Share It?
Give students a scenario: Your friend sends you a hilarious picture of another student.
Ask:
- Would you share it?
- Then keep asking questions.
- Did the person give permission?
- Could sharing it embarrass someone?
- Would you want someone sharing a picture like that of you?
- Does it matter that your friend sent it first?
Instead of giving students a list of rules, you’re helping them practice making a decision.
Try This Resource: Be Internet Awesome
Be Internet Awesome for Educators
Google’s Be Internet Awesome program provides free lessons and activities organized around five ideas:
- Be Internet Smart
- Be Internet Alert
- Be Internet Strong
- Be Internet Kind
- Be Internet Brave
The materials include lesson plans, worksheets, printable activities, and ready-to-teach slides. The site also has an AI Literacy Guide for grades 2–8 covering concepts such as machine learning, data, and algorithms. Be Internet Awesome
Students can also practice these concepts through Interland, an online game with challenges on phishing, oversharing, passwords, and online behavior. Be Internet Awesome
For Middle School: Why Am I Seeing This?
Show students a pretend social-media feed.
Label several items:
- Recommended for You
- Sponsored
- Trending
- Because You Watched…
- People You May Know
Then ask: Who decided that you should see this?
Students may initially answer, “The app.”
Go further.
- What information might the platform know about you?
- What have you clicked before?
- What have you watched?
- What have you searched?
- What have people similar to you watched?
- This introduces algorithms without requiring a computer-science lesson.
It also gives students an important idea to remember:
Your feed isn’t simply showing you the world. It’s showing you a version of the world selected for you.
Common Sense’s 2026 Digital Citizenship Week resources include middle-school activities on algorithms, personalized content, and “critical ignoring”—recognizing that deciding what not to pay attention to is also an information-literacy skill. Common Sense Media
For Secondary Students: Should You Believe It?
Give students a surprising online claim.
Don’t immediately ask: Is it true?
Instead ask: What would you do next?
- Can you identify the original source?
- Who created it?
- What do other reliable sources say?
- Is the image actually connected to the event being described?
- Can you find better coverage?
The lesson becomes less about memorizing a website-evaluation checklist and more about developing the habit:
Don’t know? Investigate.
That’s a library skill students can carry far beyond Digital Citizenship Week.
Don’t Forget AI
AI belongs in our digital citizenship conversations now.
Give students a simple rule:
AI IS A STARTING POINT, NOT AUTOMATIC PROOF.
Then give an AI-generated answer—or simply create a fictional one—and ask:
What claims in this answer could we verify?
Let students investigate.
They may discover that some information is correct, some lacks context, and some can’t be verified at all.
That’s much more valuable than simply telling students, “Don’t trust AI.”
Common Sense’s current Digital Citizenship Week materials include activities on checking AI-generated information, algorithms, and deciding when AI is—or isn’t—an appropriate tool. Common Sense Media
One More Idea: Let Students Write the Rules
After your lesson, ask: What advice would you give a younger student about being online?
Have students finish: A good digital citizen…
Their answers might include:
- checks information before sharing it.
- doesn’t give out private information.
- asks before posting someone else’s picture.
- is kind online.
- gives creators credit.
- doesn’t automatically believe AI.
- knows when to put the phone away.
Collect their responses, and you have an instant Digital Citizenship Week display.
You Don’t Have to Teach Everything
Digital citizenship is too big to fit into one library lesson—or even one week.
That’s okay.
- Teach kindergarteners that some information should remain private.
- Teach third graders that people deserve kindness online.
- Teach fifth graders to think before they share.
- Teach middle-schoolers that algorithms influence what they see.
- Teach high-schoolers to investigate before they believe or repost something.
And teach every student that using technology well requires something technology can’t do for them: their own judgment.
That’s ultimately what we’re trying to develop—not students who have memorized a long list of internet rules, but young people who know how to stop, think, question, and make a responsible choice.
Resources of the Week
18 Digital Citizenship Bulletin Board Ideas for K–12 https://library-lady.blog/digital-citizenship-bulletin-board-ideas/
Digital Citizenship Books & Activities for K–12 Students https://library-lady.blog/digital-citizenship-books-activities/
Until next time,
October Celebrations
Dan Santat Books for Kids: A K–12 Author Book List https://library-lady.blog/dan-santat-books-kids-school-library/
Celebrate Donald J. Sobol: Encyclopedia Brown, Mysteries & More https://library-lady.blog/donald-sobol-books-encyclopedia-brown/
Fire Prevention & Firefighter Books for K–12 Students https://library-lady.blog/fire-prevention-firefighter-books-k12/
James Marshall Books: Friendship, Fairy Tales & Laugh-Out-Loud Classics https://library-lady.blog/james-marshall-books-kids/
Russell Freedman Books: History Through Photographs, People & Powerful Stories https://library-lady.blog/russell-freedman-books-history-photographs/
Lois Lenski Books: Regional Stories, History & More https://library-lady.blog/lois-lenski-books-author-study
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