DiGii Social automatically moderates all learner interactions. When it notices something suspicious, it reminds learners that their behavior may not be appropriate as digital citizens and directs them to relevant videos. Educators receive notifications to explore events on their dashboard. Educators and administrators have access to everything learners write and post, including Direct Her messages.
Learners can create their own avatars and should be able to create characters that look like themselves. Some hairstyles and physical features must be paid for with DiGits. Earning DiGiits doesn’t take long, but some learners may find it unfair to pay for features that match their physical characteristics. If this is an issue, the educator can award any learner her DiGiits from the educator dashboard to ensure the learner creates a representative avatar.
Disclosure: Common Sense Education offers a unique curriculum for digital citizenship.
Upper elementary educators can use DiGii Social as part of digital citizenship education in schools and classrooms. DiGii Social is a safe place for an 11-year-old and her 12-year-old to learn the dos and don’ts of online behavior. At this age, most learners lose legal access to her Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and other social media apps and sites. DiGii Social allows learners to learn how to do their best online, rather than jumping into a ‘real’ platform without preparation. Content themes include digital health, security, safety, identity legality (such as cyberbullying), and relationships. Each area has a set of approximately 3 minute videos that introduce key knowledge. Unfortunately, the video does not have captions.
Educators may be tempted to use DiGii Social as a pseudo-LMS by posting academic activities and discussions. However, DiGii Social is not intended for academic use. Designed to allow learners to interact with each other in an authentic social media environment. DiGii Social proposes a way for adults to use social media by allowing learners to use it between classes and breaks. According to the developer, her 45 minutes of use per week should help learners absorb and practice her digital life skills. A learner has access to the program only during her 8-hour window during class.
Even with these training wheels, educators may feel uncomfortable using social platforms with learners. Please be aware that learners with access to school email and chat may share inappropriate content or behave inappropriately online. DiGii Social gives learners a safer place to make mistakes, learn and grow.
DiGii social learners may be better equipped to use traditional social media and handle their online interactions more responsibly. After each video he picks up the pace by answering three simple questions so that the learner doesn’t find DiGii Social tedious, but these questions are likely to activate higher order thinking skills. It doesn’t matter. For educators with this concern, DiGii Social offers lesson plans to help extend DiGii Social’s impact. Other resources include parent videos, posters, and more.
DiGii Social is also great at detecting suspicious behavior, allowing learners to challenge the system if they think it’s wrong. DiGii Social performed well in tests catching foul language, threats, and swimsuit photos. No system is 100% secure. DiGii Social is no exception. For example, it did not prevent a test learner’s account from sending inappropriate YouTube videos to another test learner. As with any digital tool, educators must take the time to manually monitor their learners to an appropriate degree.
DiGii Social adheres to the Australian National Curriculum, but features content and learning that you would expect from any digital citizenship programme.
Website: https://digisocial.com/
User’s overall consensus about the app
learner engagement
Many learners will enjoy being one step closer to real social media and being given a platform they can use to chat between classes.
Curriculum and instruction
Videos are short and digestible. Provides authentic context for learning. Content filtering is not 100% accurate. Learners may feel that they cannot be themselves.
customer support
Additional resources, such as lesson plans, help educators delve deeper into digital citizenship. DiGii Social also teaches learners how to ask for help. The video does not have captions.
