As a long-time advocate of, and resource speaker on, digital citizenship, I welcomed the recent collaboration of Globe Telecom, Facebook, and the Department of Education (DepEd) to continue bringing awareness of responsible digital citizenship to public and private schools nationwide, for both teachers and students.
Why is digital citizenship even more important now
As of end-2017, there are now over 60 million internet users. That is 60% of the populace! 52.2 million of the 60 million, roughly half of the entire Philippine population, is mobile, spending over 3 hours on it daily. A Philippine National Police (PNP) report also showed that half of internet users are 17 years old and below.
An international think-tank formed in association with the World Economic Forum, the DQ Institute, revealed in its inaugural 2018 DQ Global Impact Report that 56% of kids aged 8-12 years old worldwide who are online, are exposed to cyber risks. A study of the Philippine internet situation in that report shows that 73% of Filipino children are exposed to cyber risks, the second highest in a study among 29 countries.
The number of young people exposed to the internet also means that aside from the growing risks to cyberbullying, video game addiction, offers to meet offline, and online sexual behavior, they are also now at risk of being exposed to the alarming rise of disinformation (information that is meant to deceive).
Digital discernment: learning critical thinking to thwart disinformation
Globe and its partners, Facebook and DepEd, are attempting to address this by conducting workshops that aim to teach critical thinking and discernment. As part of the ongoing Digital Thumbprint Program or DTP, the partners conducted the very first pilot workshop “Digital Discernment” last February 6, 2018 at the Mind Museum in Bonifacio Global City. About one hundred (100) public high school students from Metro Manila attended the workshop which coincided with the celebration of “Safer Internet Day”.
The workshop contained topics that teach online users how to think critically online, and effectively identify credible information from questionable information. Content included practical tips on how to verify and examine online sources of on and identify facts from opinions.
I was just an observer but I found the presentation very well put together. Here are some examples of what the students were taught.
Perspective is in the eye of the beholder
The workshop presenters first talked about perspective and how what one sees as the truth can be different from someone else’s because of perspective. It depends where you are coming from. What influences our thoughts, beliefs and decisions? How we perceive things.
There could be different interpretations of the same thing
The presenter also said that the same thing could be interpreted in many different ways by people. This was illustrated by this picture.
How would you read the sign above? Count the ways.
- The letter V?
- Victory sign?
- Peace symbol?
- The number 2?
This proves that each person could interpret the same symbol differently. That is why digital discernment requires checking out all interpretations, understand where the others are coming from.
Fact? Opinion? False information?
The students were shown several slides and asked to guess if it was fact, opinion, or false information. They were given practical tips on how to verify and examine online sources and distinguish fact from opinion and from a false news story.
It was a good first workshop, in my opinion. Globe says that by the first quarter of 2018, they will be able to determine the social impact of this program to Grade 7 to 12 students. I hope this continues and filters down to all students.
More about the Digital Thumbprint Program (DTP)
Launched in 2016 by Globe, DTP first consisted of three workshop modules: 1) Digital Insight (for Grade 7 to 10 students), where participants are taught to help discern proper online behavior; 2) Digital Impact (also for Grade 7 to 10 students) where issues on technology’s impact on students’ social activities are tackled; and 3) Digital Ambition (for Grade 11 to 12 students), which equips students with skills on how to use technology to help them achieve their life goals.
DTP has already reached more than 17,000 public and private high school students with more than 1,800 facilitators already empowered to teach the program.
For schools and other organizations that would like to avail and schedule facilitation of the free workshops, email bridgecom@globe.com.ph. Workshops also include a trainers’ program to equip aspiring facilitators so they could hold the workshops independently.