Lesson video

My name is Miss Malik and I will be your teacher for today's lesson.

In today's lesson, we are going to be looking at what digital citizenship is.

In this lesson, you will need to have an exercise book or paper and a pen and somewhere quiet to work.

What will our lessons focus on? This is the first lesson in the digital democracy unit.

And today we are going to be exploring what digital citizenship is.

Throughout the lesson, we're going to be looking at different areas of digital citizenship and digital democracy.

So first, what is digital citizenship? What rights do we have as digital citizens? What is digital democracy? And how are digital technologies changing democracy? Please remember you can pause the video at any point if you need to write down your answers or revisit a certain slide.

So, what is digital citizenship? Digital citizenship is the ability of citizens to make critical use of information, technology and the internet to participate actively in communities and democracy.

Are you a digital citizen? What I would like you to do is to make a list of all the online interactions you've had in the past week.

Consider the kind of searches you've conducted, sites you've visited photos you've posted, tweets, likes, comments and conversations you have engaged with.

You can pause the video and write down your list of interactions.

Now that you've looked at your interactions within the past week, the things that you have liked and shared on social media, we now need to think about what our rights and responsibilities are.

But the first thing we need to do is to understand what rights and responsibilities mean.

What I would like you to do is to write down your own definition of rights and responsibilities.

What do you think your rights and responsibilities are online? Pause the video and the next slide I will feed back the answers.

How did you do? What is a right? A right is something in which we are entitled to.

For example, we have the right to an education.

A responsibility is something that you are in charge of and held accountable for.

For example, you are responsible for what you post online.

Now that we've looked at the definitions of rights and responsibilities, we need to think about the rights we have as digital citizens.

Being a digital citizen means you have rights and responsibilities.

This is to ensure you can participate in democratic activities using digital technology.

You know how to be safe online and you know how to protect others who you may interact with.

What I would like you to do is to brainstorm where you get your information from.

You can pause this video and write down on your piece of paper, where you get your information from.

Okay, what kind of things did you write down? You may have written down that you can access information from the internet, from your phone, from your laptop, from social media, by watching the news, or from speaking to your friends or family.

There are many different ways we can access information.

It is important to understand what to do with that information and what our rights are while using different platforms. Article 12 and article 17 are examples of rights.

They are from the United Nations, and it is a complete statement of children's rights.

Articles cover different aspects of a child's life And they set out the social, economic, political, civil, and cultural rights that children are entitled to.

So what is article 12 about? Article 12 explains that every child has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes, and all matters affecting them and to have their views considered and taken seriously.

This right applies at all times.

For example, during immigration proceedings, housing decisions, or the child's day to day home life.

Article 17.

Every child has the right to reliable information from a variety of sources, and government should encourage the media to provide information that children can understand.

Governments must help protect children from materials that could harm them.

Both articles are explaining the rights of the child in terms of respecting their views and their feelings, and also the right to access information from the media.

Now that we've looked up two very important rights, we now need to think about our responsibilities as digital citizens.

What I would like you to do is to match the responsibility on the left-hand side, to the examples in the right hand side table.

The right to privacy.

So examples of responsibilities would be not to share other images or work without permission.

The right to free expression would be to respect the opinions, viewpoints, and ideas of others, to always remember to use appropriate language and display good behaviour when interacting with others online.

So for example, no cyber bullying.

If you do witness cyber bullying or threats or an inappropriate use of digital resources, you must report them.

So for example, on Instagram, you may come across a account that is spreading a very negative and hateful message.

It is your responsibility to then report that account.

The right to data protection, so the responsibility for that is to follow the rules and codes of conduct for every internet site.

What would the consequences be without these rights for citizens? If people were able to share other people's work, and people were able to say whatever they liked on social media, if people were able to send threats and use inappropriate language? What are the consequences of that? What did you get for the right to information? As you know, the charter for children's rights, you have the right to accurate information.

But what is your responsibility? Hopefully your ideas included not to share wrong information or spreading stories you know are not true.

This can often be an issue online and it is important we try to check stories before we share them.

If you want to know more about this, you can take a look at the media literacy lessons.

We are now going to look at digital democracy.

The use of digital and online methods support key functions of democracy.

For example, online information about elections, digital campaigns, citizen consultations by government, citizen participation in parliamentary debates and committees and electronic voting by MPS or the electorate.

How are digital technologies changing democracy? What I would like you to do is to match the keywords in the table to the correct definitions.

Pause the video and write your answers down.

The next slide will be feedback so you can check your answers.

Let's check your answers.

You can mark your work as you go.

So the key word, petitions.

These are signatures which are collected in support of a particular cause.

This could be on paper or electronically.

So for example, a petition to stop the use of plastic cutlery in schools.

That could be a petition that is within school, but it is in support of a particular cause.

E-voting.

A voter casts a ballot using digital means instead of on paper.

Campaigns.

An organised course of action to achieve a certain goal.

We are now going to look at a case study.

Estonia is a country in Northern Europe, and it borders the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland.

It is known for its rocky beaches, castles and fortresses.

And it is an EU member.

Estonia has been using internet voting for more than 10 years.

And in 2015, more than 30% of voters cast their votes through E-voting.

How did it work? During the pre-voting period, voters log on to the system using an ID card or mobile ID and cast a ballot.

The voters identity is removed from the ballot before it reaches the National Electoral Commission for counting, thereby ensuring anonymity.

The system is much cheaper than a paper based election.

What I would like you to do is to think of the potential problems of e-voting.

Pause the video, and the next slide will provide feedback.

You can check your answers to see if you had the same or something similar.

So, problems surrounding e-voting.

The Estonian system used electronic ID cards, which have been rejected in the UK, as it poses serious questions about security and privacy.

Estonia is a small country, so if everyone in the UK decided to vote at that same time, there could be technical issues and the system could crash.

The system could also be hacked by malicious groups.

Throughout COVID-19, we had to adapt to different ways of living and do things that we have never done before.

An example of this is e-voting taking place in Gateshead, which is in the Northeast of England.

And they were invited to vote twice in the local elections via the traditional ballot box and on a touch screen computer.

Only their ballot paper vote will count with the e-voting being just a trial.

E-voting could eventually transform elections doing away with the need for an election count.

Several countries have experimented with such systems, but security fears have held deployment back.

Anyone wanting to take part must record their vote via a touch-screen computer at the polling booth by entering a passcode issued to them, selecting a candidate and then receiving a paper receipt.

All encrypted votes are published on the election website where anyone will be able to look at the tally for each candidate.

The system will flag up if any e-vote has been illegitimately modified.

Now we've looked at two examples of e-voting.

We've mentioned, the potential problems caused and the benefits of e-voting.

What I would like you to do is to either make a list, or you can draw a table and write down the advantages and disadvantages of e-voting.

Pause the video to record your answers and then, we will feed back on the next slide.

Let's check your answers.

You can mark your work as you go.

So the first advantage.

Campaigning is viral.

This means it's accessible and can reach many people.

It also gives people the opportunity to view each political party, so they can read the manifestos, what the political party stands for, and make an informed decision.

It is interactive, which gives people a chance to ask questions and view key information.

People can also opt in, so the audience will have interest.

And it is also free.

Despite these advantages, there are also some disadvantages which we need to be aware of.

There are a lot of members which can make it difficult to target material.

And because of that, there is a massive content and people must go through a lot of information to find the best.

People may not have time to do that, or they might not have the skills to use social media or technology to go through the information, and people may not have access to the internet.

How are digital technologies changing democracy? So, the face things, what are the changes? E-voting.

So as we've seen, it was trialled in Gateshead in the Northeast of England.

The use of social media campaigns, and how has that then had an impact on digital technologies? So this then influences political campaigns and information is more accessible.

People can view information via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

There are many different channels where voters can view information about different political parties.

And this then results in active democracy.

So because citizens are able to research and make an informed decision for themselves, they can contribute, they can share, they can post, they can like, they can give their opinion.

And because they can contribute, it is interactive.

So how have you done this lesson? What I would like you to do is to try and answer as many of these questions as you can.

The last question, explain how digital technologies are changing democracy, is a challenge question, and I will be going through that question on the next slide.

So think how you can structure your answer and what you need to include to answer this question on how digital technologies are changing democracy.

So you would need to include a definition of digital technologies and a definition of digital democracy.

Some examples of change, which could include petitions, e-voting and campaigns.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you have finished.

Check your answer and see if you have something similar and you have covered the key points from the slide before.

You can mark your work as you go.

Digital technologies are the online methods we use to communicate and work.

These can include email, social media and digital recordings.

These are often used as they are quick and cheap, and it's a good way to spread a message to a large number of people.

Digital democracy is using these methods in connection with government and politics.

For example, being able to take part in debates using a digital method like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. The development of digital technology now means that people no longer need to attend the Houses of Parliament for meetings as they can do this digitally.

During the Corona virus, this was a massive benefit that politicians were able to still meet and debate online without having to meet in person because restrictions wouldn't allow them to do so.

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