Facebook has announced the Digital Literacy Library, a service that aims to provide educators with the resources needed to teach their students about the different aspects of their digitally-connected lives. The Youth and Media team of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Security of the Harvard University developed the lessons offered by the Digital Literacy Library, and the teaching resources were formulated using the data and insights gathered from more than ten years of academic research that involved subjects from a wide variety of backgrounds. These resources should help educators guide students in not only using the internet safely but also in developing digital literacy skills, which involves finding, evaluating, and communicating information through different digital platforms.
There are 18 different lessons currently available in the Digital Literacy Library. These lessons cater to students aged between 11 to 18 years old, and these materials focus on subject areas like security, community engagement, safety and well-being, positive behavior, and others. All of these lessons are in English, although Facebook stated that it is currently working to translate the teaching resources to 45 additional languages. These lessons include specific instructions that guide educators through different activities and it also states how much time will each session take, which should make it easy for teachers to incorporate the activities in a variety of learning environments. Educators themselves may modify the lessons offered by the Digital Literacy Library, and Facebook is also working to add more resources for use by teachers around the world.
The social media giant has been recently developing resources that guide people in using social media and the internet more responsibly. Just last May, Facebook launched the Youth Portal, which aims to provide insights and information to the youth regarding the safe and responsible use of the internet. This resource explains the tools offered by the social media platform, while it uses analogies to better communicate important issues to young users. Aside from the youth, Facebook’s Safety Center is also offering resources to parents with the Parents Portal, and it also includes the Online Well-being section, which allows users to access tools that resolve conflicts between users.