'Maddie is Online', Series 2 Misinformation, featured on BBC's 'Sunday Morning Live programme (series 13, episode 18)
It was an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved with the work so far.
What is the direction of the project?
The project centres on the everyday life of a fictitious pre-teen girl called Maddie,
who experiences troubles online, and the emphasis of the work is on creating freely accessible online cartoon animation
education resources for schools and parents.
'Maddie is Online' is about the behavioural
aspects and the strategies of young people (9-12 years old) to navigate safely and
ethically their online environments. With the contribution of the community and the creative input of young people, teachers, librarians, parents, academics and students, so far, we have made available four series: online
resilience, misinformation, online copyright and the ethics of online safety
and security. Every series has cartoon
stories with real young people’s voice-overs and an eBook toolkit that has
curated resources and activities. We are extremely grateful to so many people who have donated their voice and time to make this work happen and for the support of the Scottish Government, via the Scottish Library and Information Council, and Digital Xtra Fund and the RGU Innovation Accelerator.
Miss Mason from 'Maddie is Online' Series 2 Misinformation featured on BBC's 'Sunday Morning Live programme (series 13, episode 18)
How did we come up with the
scenarios?
The stories were initially inspired by everyday life experiences, observing how young people wanted to be constantly connected online and worried, for example, about how many likes they had on social media. We wanted to do something that was engaging, creative and fun
that would allow young people to articulate their perspectives and express
their own voice, at the same time understand their rights and responsibilities and
educate us about their own world views, the challenges and the opportunities
they encounter.
On BBC's 'Sunday Morning Live' programme
There is a lot about online risks and harms,
grooming, fake news, online scamming, that can be quite scary and concerning, but we wanted to tackle the behavioural, ethical and emotional side, and also invite
young people to be co-creators of this work and develop creative, reflective and team working skills. It was important for this work to be by
them and not only for them, a means to educate each other.
Young People working on the project at St Andrew's and St Bride's school
What are the successes of the project so far?
So far we have engaged hundreds of young people with Series 1 on 'Online Resilience' and, currently we are evaluating Series 2 on 'Misinformation'. However, we very much welcome anyone interested to use the series in their school or home and give us feedback.
Running Series 1 on 'Online Resilience' in schools
We have also received some lovely feedback from the teachers and the school librarian who have taken part in the project (current series 4).
Ellon
Academy (from the perspective of the teacher Series 2)
“During session
2021-2022, pupils in S1 at the school engaged with Series 2 of Maddie is
Online during a unit of work that focused on Digital Research &
Information Skills. They found the
cartoons/episodes to be thought-provoking and encouraged them to think more
about how they conducted their own research, along with finding information
that was reliable. The episodes were
used principally as starters to get thoughts flowing and were then used as the
basis for further discussions and tasks throughout the unit." (Mr E Armstrong (PT Digital Learning).St Andrew’s and St
Bride’s High School (East Kilbride) SASB Staff Quotes from teachers
involved in the project (Series 4)
"Our Computing Science
Curriculum at St Andrew's and St Bride's recognises the importance of building
resilience in Cyber Security. The opportunity to participate in this
project has added a real-life focus on the ethical dimension of this for our students.
It's really helped enhance their understanding of such an important part of our
course and allowed them to think about the ways in which they can stay safe
online themselves." (Maria Murphy, Principal Teacher of
Computing and Business Studies).
"Taking part in the competition
has allowed our pupils to work creatively together in an authentic
interdisciplinary challenge, across both English and Literacy and Computing.
They’ve had to think carefully about how to bring a story they’ve written to
life and they’ve made decisions and compromises on how to do that whilst
meeting tight deadlines. A real-world challenge! There was an understanding
from our groups that this wasn’t just about entering a competition for the
chance to win but that their tangible project could also be used to help other
learners benefit from lessons around
staying safe online." (Susan Brownlie, Teacher of English).
Hazlehead Academy (Series 4)
“Hazlehead Academy began working
on this project in the summer of 2022 with our S2 classes. Working on a
creative project which allowed them to use their imagination has really helped
the pupils’ understanding of the ethics of online safety” (Diane Scott, Library
Resource Centre Co-ordinator).
Blog post on 'Maddie is online' featured on The Queens' Nursing Institute'.
Why is this the right time to focus on this?
To this question, we could actually say that it is not the right time, it is already somewhat late! We need to start early educating young people
about their own rights and responsibilities in the online world and getting
them onboard to express the challenges they face, and how they can deal with
them effectively.
What is next?
In the future we would like to see 'Maddie is Online' being taught to even more schools nationally and internationally, as part of different subjects. We would like to see more educators engaging in an open dialogue with young people, discussing the challenges and the opportunities of online connectivity.
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