Online safety: Digital Technologies

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Digital Technologies

The Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies can provide students with practical opportunities to develop design thinking skills. When working with and building digital systems, the design thinking process places the user and their safety at the forefront of the design. The subject helps students to become innovative creators of digital solutions, effective users of digital systems, and critical consumers of information conveyed by digital systems. Digital Technologies delivers authentic learning challenges that foster curiosity, confidence, persistence, innovation, creativity, respect and cooperation. These qualities, supported by appropriate online behaviour, enrich the development of information systems to make sense of complex ideas and relationships.

Digital Technologies requires the communication and the collaboration of local, regional and global citizens who are capable of actively and ethically communicating and collaborating.  Online safety awareness assists students to identify risks, social contexts and legal responsibilities when engaging online. At the same time, Safety by Design principles place the safety and rights of users at the centre of the design, development and deployment of digital technologies. Authentic consultation, typically in groups throughout the design process, encourages students to build empathy, develop respectful relationships and conflict management skills, and ensure that digital solutions are appropriate. The Digital Technologies curriculum is designed for students from Foundation to Year 8. This subject is offered as an elective to students In Years 9 and 10.

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Content descriptions with elaborations:

Plan, create and communicate ideas and information independently and with others, applying agreed ethical and social protocols (ACTDIP013)

  • considering ways of managing the use of social media to maintain privacy needs, for example activating privacy settings to avoid divulging personal data such as photographs, addresses, and names and recognising that all digital interactions are difficult to erase (digital footprints)
  • using a range of online tools to share information and being aware thatinformation may be recieved at different times, for example adding entries to a class blog, participating in a web conference or online chat with an author, or participating in a forum on a specific topic
  • organising and creating different types of information for sharing and collaorating online, for example planning the sequence and appearance of an animation, and sharing it online with students from another school
  • discussing digital citizenship rules and behaviours for participating in an online environment, for example not using all capital letters when expressing a strong viewpoint about a contenious matter and ensuing that the audience is aware of your identity
  • making ethical decisions when faced with reporting inappropriate online behaviour or acknowledging digital products created by others, for example making a decision based on how individuals would like to be treated

Content descriptions with elaborations:

Explain how student solutions and existing information systems meet common personal, school or community needs (ACTDIP012)

  • investigating how information systems are used in communities and explaining what needs are being met, for example students jointly creating a short survey and collecting data about how many community residents use the online library borrowing system to download e-books and why they do or do not

Plan, create and communicate ideas and information independently and with others, applying agreed ethical and social protocols (ACTDIP013)

  • considering ways of managing the use of social media to maintain privacy needs, for example activating privacy settings to avoid divulging personal data such as photographs, addresses, and names and recognising that all digital interactions are difficult to erase (digital footprints)
  • using a range of online tools to share information and being aware thatinformation may be recieved at different times, for example adding entries to a class blog, participating in a web conference or online chat with an author, or participating in a forum on a specific topic
  • organising and creating different types of information for sharing and collaorating online, for example planning the sequence and appearance of an animation, and sharing it online with students from another school
  • discussing digital citizenship rules and behaviours for participating in an online environment, for example not using all capital letters when expressing a strong viewpoint about a contenious matter and ensuing that the audience is aware of your identity
  • making ethical decisions when faced with reporting inappropriate online behaviour or acknowledging digital products created by others, for example making a decision based on how individuals would like to be treated