This chapter explores your role in supporting student digital citizenship and wellbeing. It will consider how digital technologies can be used to support students’ growth as a person and digital citizen, including developing 21st-century skills. It will unpack your responsibilities to help students to develop life skills and behave in a safe and ethical manner at the intersection of the digital and non-digital worlds. The approaches you adopt in supporting students need to be age appropriate and the strategies could vary across year levels and therefore, the early childhood, primary and secondary years will be addressed separately, though, at times, you will note some overlap in the approaches and strategies. A later chapter, Chapter 11, will investigate your personal role and work in the digital world, related to your personal digital identity and how using the affordances of digital technologies can support you in your work, for example, when engaging with and supporting families.

Schools are an opportune context for digital citizenship education and promoting healthy digital media use. We examine 20 programs providing such resources. They differ in topics and depth, target grade levels of students, pedagogical approaches (lecture, discussion), formats (scenario-based lessons, videos, interactive games), and takeaways. Our review reveals that lessons promoting healthy digital habits involve these learning goals: (1) Critical awareness: revealing how digital design features shape technology experiences; (2) Self-reflection: building self-awareness about personal digital media use (e.g., asking students to track app use). Self-reflection builds “digital metacognition” involving thinking intentionally about technology choices. (3) Behavioral change: helping students “balance” their lives through on-device strategies (e.g., turning off push notifications) and off-device strategies (e.g., scheduling screen-free time). Although more research on the effectiveness of school-based programs is needed, there is potential in a three-pronged approach whereby educators and others working with youth build critical awareness, self-reflection, and behavioral change.