• Reflective pages: Students can include reflective pages in their portfolios to describe what each piece of work represents, the skills they’ve learned, and how their digital identity is evolving. This encourages them to think critically about the lasting impact of their online activities.
• Multimedia integration: With Book Creator, students can embed videos, audio recordings, and images to create an interactive, multimedia portfolio that truly reflects their talents, interests, and responsible online behavior.
• Goal setting and digital footprint tracking: Students can dedicate sections of their portfolio to track their digital footprint. For example, they can set goals for improving their online behavior and monitor their progress over time, ensuring they leave a positive and thoughtful impression in the digital world.

By using a portfolio, students actively shape their digital identity in a way that reflects their values, achievements, and personal growth. Book Creator becomes a platform where they can manage their digital footprint with intention, ensuring their online identity aligns with their real-world aspirations and goals.

Students can also reflect on their social media activity with our “Who are you on Social Media?” book collaboration with Common Sense Education.

1.2.b Online interactions: promoting empathy and inclusivity

The internet brings together people from diverse backgrounds, offering countless opportunities for connection. However, with this comes the responsibility to interact with empathy, inclusivity, and respect.

Mastering online interactions involves understanding how to communicate thoughtfully and positively in digital spaces. Book Creator provides a creative and safe platform where students can practice these skills, ensuring their online behavior fosters inclusivity and responsible digital citizenship.

Book Creator in action during Digital Citizenship Week and beyond

• Creating role-playing scenarios: Students can craft stories or role-playing scenarios within Book Creator that explore online dilemmas, such as cyberbullying, misinformation, or exclusion. Through these stories, students can illustrate different ways to handle challenging situations with empathy and kindness, showing how inclusive behavior positively impacts online communities. This allows them to reflect on real-world challenges while developing solutions that prioritize empathy and respect.

• Collaborative projects: Book Creator enables students to collaborate on shared projects, allowing them to work together on stories, guides, or research. They learn how to navigate differing perspectives, share responsibilities, and contribute to a collaborative digital space in a positive manner.
• Sharing work to promote responsible behavior: Students can publish their books, sharing their insights and reflections on responsible online behavior with classmates and even a broader school community. By offering these resources to their peers, students take an active role in encouraging others to practice empathy, respect, and inclusivity in their digital interactions.
• Using commenting features for thoughtful discourse: Book Creator’s commenting feature allows students to engage in meaningful, teacher-monitored online discussions. By commenting on each other’s creations, students can offer constructive feedback, ask questions, and engage in thoughtful conversations.

1.2.c Safeguard well-being: maintaining a healthy digital balance

In today’s digital age, maintaining a healthy balance between online and offline activities is essential for students’ well-being. Excessive screen time, digital distractions, and social media pressures can all take a toll on mental and physical health.

To safeguard their well-being, students need to be intentional about how they use technology, ensuring they engage in healthy digital habits.

Book Creator in action during Digital Citizenship Week and beyond

• Creating personalized digital wellness plans: Book Creator allows students to design their own digital wellness plans, where they can track daily screen time, monitor their digital activities, and set goals for reducing excessive online behavior. Students can use text, images, and graphs to visualize their progress and set healthy boundaries for themselves, helping them stay accountable to their wellness goals.
• Reflective journals for self-awareness: Students can build reflective journal pages within Book Creator to explore how certain online activities—such as gaming, social media, or studying—affect their mood and overall well-being. They can assess what triggers stress or anxiety, and brainstorm ways to balance their digital lives. This reflective practice encourages mindfulness, empowering students to make more informed choices about their online behavior.

• Goal setting and screen-time tracking: Using our new page templates, students can use Book Creator to set specific, measurable goals for reducing screen time and increasing offline activities like reading, exercising, or spending time outdoors.

Track your progress and achieve your goals! This interactive template helps students set objectives and stay on track throughout the year, perfect for Digital Citizenship Week 2024.

1.2.d Digital privacy: protecting personal data online

As the digital world grows, so does the amount of personal data students share—often without realizing it. Protecting digital privacy is essential for students to safeguard their information from misuse, data breaches, or identity theft.

Teaching students to take ownership of their privacy is a critical aspect of digital citizenship. With Book Creator, students can develop interactive guides and resources that not only educate themselves but also help their peers understand the importance of maintaining digital security.

Book Creator in action during Digital Citizenship Week and beyond

• Designing step-by-step privacy guides: Students can use Book Creator to craft detailed, step-by-step tutorials on adjusting privacy settings across popular platforms and devices. These guides can feature annotated screenshots, diagrams, and clear instructions, making it easier for peers to understand how to protect their personal data.

  By creating these practical resources, students not only strengthen their own online security but also provide valuable tools for their classmates. A guide created by students, for students, fosters a unique leadership opportunity, empowering them to take an active role in promoting digital safety.

• Exploring consequences through storytelling: Book Creator’s versatile features allow students to create comic books or interactive stories that explore the real-world consequences of not protecting personal data.

  By embedding videos, infographics, and audio clips, students can illustrate scenarios such as identity theft or data breaches, making these concepts relatable and engaging. This form of storytelling helps students grasp the importance of personal data protection through creative exploration.

• Interactive security campaigns: Book Creator also enables students to build digital privacy campaigns aimed at educating their school community about online safety. By incorporating multimedia elements like instructional videos, quizzes, and infographics, students can create engaging, educational books that raise awareness about privacy issues.
• Reflective privacy audits: Students can use Book Creator to conduct personal privacy audits, reflecting on their own online behaviors and digital footprints. Students can document their current privacy practices, identify vulnerabilities, and develop action plans for improving their data protection.

  Our “Your Rings of Responsibility” collaboration book with Common Sense Media provides them with opportunities to explore how their actions affect themselves, their community, and their world.

ISTE student standards with Book Creator

By using Book Creator to master the ISTE Digital Citizen standards, students are not only developing their digital literacy but also enhancing their creativity and critical thinking. They become more responsible, ethical, and thoughtful digital citizens, prepared for the challenges of the online world.

Looking for more inspiration for Digital Citizenship Week 2024? Check out this resource by Dr. Monica Burns, where she shares creative ideas for teachers on how to use Book Creator to help students become responsible digital citizens with the Common Sense Education Digital Citizenship curriculum. It's a great guide full of practical tips to integrate digital citizenship into your classroom!