Developing Digital Competence and Wellbeing – A Training Conference for Primary School Educators

What previous participants have said:

‘Motivating, inspiring experience. Let’s get going!’
‘Well pitched at differentiated levels for learners/experts and great links to practical application in the classroom’
‘I have gained a better understanding of Digital Literacy as a whole’
‘Great training site and resources’
‘The example videos and stories were helpful to use in schools with staff, children and parents’
‘I now have a much better understanding of Digital Citizenship and how to work towards achieving this in school with staff, parents and pupils’

For more examples of Feedback/Insights from Primary Educators from a previous Training Conference: see

29th of Dec 2018: North Wales Primary Teachers Training Day

https://drive.google.com/folderview?
id=0Bw3xJKyB_gDNYUZ0YVlkdm1NQk0&usp=sharing and

http://nwdigicit.blogspot.co.uk 

Programme Flier Below:

Introduction

We live at a time of increased connectivity to the Internet via almost any device like a smart phone, game console, iPad or pc. The Internet not only offers great opportunities for education, learning, socialising and networking, but it is also transforming society, family life, and how we do all these things. Mobile devices, social services like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, online gaming and social messaging apps like Whatsapp, Kik, iMessenger are increasing our ability to connect, socialise, share information, and learn.

These new developments bring many positive benefits, but can also create challenges which parents, carers, educators and others who work with children and young people – need to be aware of – and manage. These can range from issues like cyberbullying, account hacking, password sharing, to issues of overuse, access to inappropriate content and inappropriate games, oversharing personal information and data, and maintaining privacy.

As more and more children have access to the Internet and connected services at younger ages, it is vital that educators, parents and carers and others who work with them, are able to support them to develop their critical thinking skills, their understanding of how online technologies work, and the roles they have and which they can play in helping themselves and their friends to be effective, safe and responsible online.

This Training Programme

This interactive training programme aims to provide primary school teachers with an up-to-date picture of new online technologies and the potential of these for developing children’s understanding of the digital world and their role in it. It will also explore online safety issues, with a view to helping primary teachers to find the most effective ways to help children understand how to be safe online and offline. Participants will also gain practical insights into how best to promote a culture of ‘digital citizenship’ and wellbeing in primary schools.

Programme Outcomes/Expectations

By attending this programme, participants will be able to:

  • Develop creative and engaging use of tools and resources to promote positive Internet use and digital literacy for primary pupils.
  • Develop practical strategies and concepts to tackle online safety in an age-appropriate way.
  • Develop practical strategies to promote parental engagement and parental digital literacy in the primary phase.
  • Create a whole-school approach to developing digital citizenship.
  • Easily use live-blogging techniques in their classrooms.
  • Develop an action plan (for a whole-school approach to digital citizenship and wellbeing).
  • Gain access to an online site as a resource base to support the training

Format

All participants will also gain insights into use of multimedia tools and blogs, as they will be participating in group discussions and reflective activities and ‘live blogging’. Some of the demonstrations will also include use of Twitter using a designated training event hashtag.

Resources

All participants will also be given access to a specially created website which will have links to the material presented, video clips used, and other useful links.

Essential Notes

As part of this interactive training day, the trainer and participants will be using handheld camcorders/cameras/smart phones to create multimedia output which will be used in the training day demonstration sessions. Some of this content may also be used in our blogs/ promotional materials. Participants are encouraged to bring their own mobile devices in.