Teaching students to be creative, safe and responsible users of digital technology

At CIS, we integrate technology into classroom activities and the curriculum in order to provide rich and meaningful 21st century learning experiences. Our passionate group of digital literacy coaches help us ensure this is done in a responsible and balanced way.

One of their core tasks is to help our teachers incorporate the Digital Citizenship curriculum designed by the world-renowned Common Sense Media organisation, into all their teaching.

A major component of the digital citizenship curriculum is teaching students to be safe online,” explains CIS digital literacy coach Tim Studlo. “Educating and building trust with students so they can share their digital problems with teachers, counsellors or principles is a key objective. We want our students to be able to share their experiences even when things go wrong, so they know we’ll be there to help them no matter the situation.”

“Another important task of ours is advocating digital footprint awareness,” explains Tim. “We don’t use social media in any of our teaching, however we do recognise it plays a big part in many of our student’s daily lives. Making sure they understand the pros and cons of an online presence and how it can be perceived by a future employer is important to us. For example, we recently invited Olivia Lee, LinkedIn Talent and Learning specialist to speak to our grade 12 students about options for building an online presence for professional reasons.”

Working closely with parents is also important. “Helping our students be safe, responsible and respectful technology users is not a one-person job,” adds Tim. “It involves the support or our entire community - students, teachers and parents all working together. We hold regular sessions for parents to keep them up-to-date with the latest concepts and also a Digital Wellbeing week where we challenge our community to think about the amount of time they spend online and how they are interacting with their digital world.”

At CIS our goal is to develop our students into good digital citizens where they have the right skills and tools to think critically, behave safely and participate responsibly with the digital world.

To find out more about digital learning at CIS visit www.cis.edu.sg/learning/digital-literacy or contact their Admissions team on +65 6734 8088.