Course Overview

Welcome to Empowering Yourself as a Digital Citizen!

By enrolling in this course you have accepted the challenge to learn how to navigate an ever-evolving information landscape as both a consumer and creator of information. Over the next six weeks you will learn how to use and remix information ethically, and how to create and share an online social identity. Those who successfully complete a series of quests and challenges will earn a digital badge demonstrating their achievements as responsible and empowered digital citizens.

Topics in this course are presented through the lens of metaliteracy, which promotes critical thinking and self-reflection to consume, create, and share information with others. Participants of this course will learn how to critically navigate, evaluate and produce information in open, online, and social media settings.  

Throughout the course participants will work their way towards earning the Digital Citizen badge. If earned, this hyperlinked achievement may be displayed on a professional network or digital portfolio as evidence of your successful completion of the course.

Learning Objective: Understand personal privacy, information ethics, and intellectual property issues in changing technology environments.

Course Format

Each week will consist of the following activities:

  • A brief video introducing the week's content
  • Quests, challenges and badges. The digital badging activities make up the bulk of the content in this course, and allow participants to directly explore the concepts being presented within a game-like format. Badge assignments are due at the end of each week (Sundays at 11:59 PM ET). If you do not plan on earning the Digital Citizen badge you are still welcome to read through the materials, watch the videos, and engage in class discussions.
  • Peer assessments are used to engage with and learn from the other students in this course. After submitting the weekly assignment you will be asked to review the work of two of your peers based on a simple rubric.
  • Quizzes will serve as benchmarks throughout the course so that you may assess your understanding of the course content. While a passing score is required to earn the digital citizen badge, you may take these quizzes as many times as you like.

What to Expect

  • Prerequisites: No background is required to participate in this course; all are welcome!
  • Resources: All resources are open and free to access. Links will be provided.
  • Time Commitment: To be successful in this course, you should plan to spend approximately 3-5 hours each week watching videos, reading course content, and working through badge assignments.
  • Support: If you have a question about the course you may post it to the Course Questions forum. Instructors will be checking the forums periodically, and one of of your peers may also be able to answer your question. If you have questions about Canvas you can visit the Canvas Guides Links to an external site. or, if you can't find your answer there, refer your question to the Canvas Help Center Links to an external site..