Week 04 - Our critical eye and the Internet

The theme of week 4 is: Our critical eye and the Internet.  In this last week of National Cyber Security Awareness Month we’re going to tie together the previous weeks' activities with a look at Digital Literacy and Digital Citizenship.

Technology is all around us - it's an essential part of our daily lives.  Being good digital citizens and being digitally literate are now more important than ever.  So what is digital citizenship and digital literacy? 

• Digital citizenship can be defined as the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use.  Read more at Digital Citizenship.net
• According to Media Smarts.ca, Digital Literacy is more than technological know-how; it includes a wide variety of ethical, social and reflective practices that are embedded in work, learning, leisure and daily life. 

We've posted a couple of items to kick off this topic:

• A "Digital Citizenship" infographic that summarises a few key points
• A graphic novel on social media use - perfect for 'tweens and teens.  Feel free to download and share this one! 

To wrap up the week we've added a few more items for you:

• .The “Little Black Book of Scams” is a great publication from the Government of Canada.  It outlines several of the common Internet scams – how they work, steps you can take to protect yourself, and so on.  Oh, and the graphics are quite entertaining!
• Safety Tips for Social Networking is a publication from BC’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.  Good, basic information that  we hope you’ll find useful.
• Another  publication from BC’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, the “Top 8 Things You Shouldn’t Give Social Networking Sites” carries on from the safety tips handout.  There’s a couple on this list I’ll bet you aren’t aware of!  

Related to the Little Black Book of Scams is the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.  It’s the central agency in Canada for collecting information on a variety of fraudulent activities.  If you need help or want more information about a possible fraud, this is the place to start.  Here’s the link: http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/index-eng.htm