BENGALURU: While the state education department is working towards implementing digital aspects of the National Education Policy in government schools, private schools and teachers are taking the opportunity to do their own research.
Teachers at Inventure Academy formulated their own Digital Citizenship Curriculum to ensure that their students use social media and technology conscientiously. “Identifying as a digital citizen is someone who uses the internet for their everyday lives. We tried to look at it from a point of view of what skills a digital citizen needs to maintain control of their life, like cyber security, communication skills and media literacy,” said Ruchi Aggarwal, manager of the academy’s Wider World initiative.
Aggarwal and Aaron Joseph of the academy’s Maker Space, Design & Tech Studio were part of the team that designed the curriculum. The team, as well as two other teams, were a product of an eight-month certificate programme on entrepreneurship and innovation offered by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (GSE). The teams presented their capstone projects on Wednesday at a two-day Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conclave for School Leaders, organised by Inventure Academy, in partnership with GSE.
The team carried out a study for a semester on around 20 Grade 8 students, where they found that students were able to understand that there was a change in their personalities online after they were made aware of their online habits.