From kindergarten promotion to portrait of a graduate, give kids the know-how they need in our tech-filled world.

Making sure students are prepared for their futures has always been a goal for schools and educators, but achieving it is only getting more complicated. With the speed of AI development and its uncertain impacts on careers, it’s hard to know what skills students will actually need to give them access to the jobs—and lives—they want. Even the job application process involves artificial intelligence models that pre-scan resumes and cover letters! Add to that the ways in which digital life may impact the classroom, from student behaviors to attention spans, critical thinking, and learning itself.

Despite the shortcuts that various forms of media and tech can afford us, we know that foundational knowledge and skills are essential for further learning and practical application to flourish. And, of course, there are still educational objectives and standards that schools are responsible for helping students meet. Districts are formulating portraits of graduates to meet this moment. But even as we meet current standards, media and tech are moving the targets in unpredictable ways.

Here’s something we can be sure of in uncertain times: Media and tech may influence fundamental skills and capacities, but they’ll never replace them. What we can do is help students recognize this influence and the deep importance of these skills and human capacities for their present and future selves.

By recognizing the role that digital literacy and well-being play in thinking and learning, we are finally including the enormous influence that media and tech have on our lives, our cultures, our relationships, and even what it means to be human. We’re helping kids take back the reins and learn to think about that influence so they can shape their futures from a more informed and skilled place. We’re helping them learn how to think, create, evaluate, and reflect in ways that showcase the value of their own minds and hearts.

Below you’ll find each life skill supported by one or more types of applicable resources, including lessons, PD, and tips.

Digital Literacy & Well-Being

In our technology-infused world, it’s increasingly important that we use media and tech for our individual good and collective benefit. That means not only recognizing the design tricks and content types that try to keep us hooked, but also forming healthy habits despite those efforts. It means being able to think critically about the motives and messages of people online and keep ourselves and our information safe. In the age of AI, it also means understanding the utility and shortcomings of artificial intelligence and new tech developments that follow. There are even more skills beyond these! But direct instruction about digital literacy and well-being is no longer nice-to-have: These skills are now critical underpinnings to so many other elements that lead to the lives we want our students to have….

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