Digital Skills
“To ensure that children and young people are supported to be safe, resilient and empowered, it is important to understand how they actively engage with the technical, creative, learning, social and collaborative affordances of the digital world they inhabit, how they perceive, interact with and shape their online experiences"
About
Maddie is Online
'Maddie is Online’ is a series of innovative educational resources supported by cartoon video stories with real voice-overs and toolkits that contain learning activities. The series addresses the everyday life experiences of pre-teen children (9-13 years old) in the online connected environment and empowers them with information and digital literacy skills that help them deal with challenging phenomena in their digital lives (e.g., online bullying, online misinformation, online copyright and ownership of creative material, online privacy and security, online reputation).
About
Maddie is Online
‘Maddie is Online’ is a series of innovative educational resources supported by cartoon video stories with real voice-overs and toolkits that contain learning activities. The series addresses the everyday life experiences of pre-teen children (9-13 years old) in the online connected environment and empowers them with information and digital literacy skills that help them deal with challenging phenomena in their digital lives (e.g., online bullying, online misinformation, online copyright and ownership of creative material, online privacy and security, online reputation).
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Services
Select one of the following services offered as part of the series.
You can download the education resource toolkits freely below. The toolkits contain useful resources and activities linked to the series themes. They also have links to open YouTube cartoon videos, step-by-step structured digital lesson plans, learning resources and systematic guidance for running the series
The series is designed to work best with the free online toolkits (as there are active links that work online), but, after popular demand, we also offer the option of a printed copy for reference purposes. You can order below. The cost is not for profit. It covers printing, and there is also an additional shipping cost.
You can book an online consultation with the series creator to go through all the steps you need to follow for using the resources at school or at home. As part of the consultation, you also receive a free copy of one of the toolkits of your preference. Booking a consultation helps to support the development of new topics in the series.
Explore the free online Toolkit Series
Our Features
What makes our work to differentiate
01
Digital Literacy Skills Development
Empowers young people with digital literacy and digital citizenship skills, using fun and engaging learning activities, with audio-visual material. Supports learners to become active producers and creators of online content, developing understanding of online malpractices versus ethical behaviours.
02
Innovative Educational Resources
Uses innovative educational cartoon video resources, designed to support creatively young people’s digital resilience skills development, as the online citizens of tomorrow, prepared to deal with multiple challenges and opportunities navigating their online environments.
03
Confident & Responsible Online Citizens
04
Engages in Critical Conversations
Supports young people to grow up as confident and responsible online citizens who respect the online rights, the safety and the wellbeing of others (e.g., recognizing the wrongs of online bullying behaviour, respecting rights in the online environment, handling online data with care).
Opens critical conversations, exploring the perspectives, feelings, attitudes, and behaviour of young people around issues of online connectivity and safety, through creative and interactive educational activities that relate to their own everyday life experiences.
Series Creator
This work was created by Dr Konstantina Martzoukou (Associate Professor in information and digital literacies) with the active contribution of young people and teachers at schools, academics, library science students and parents. 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, the Scottish Library and Information Council, Digital Xtra Fund and the RGU Innovation Accelerator.
Our work has been featured on BBC 'Sunday Morning Live' programme and has been widely published.
Why Choose Us
“A much-needed resource for our school aged children who are subject to increasing online abuse and misinformation. Using animations and cartoons built on their self-identified needs is a fabulous example of co-production and, as such, much more likely to help empower them in making safer online decisions”.
Chief Executive Officer for the UK’s School and Public Health Nurses Association
Ellon Academy, Aberdeenshire
“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."
St Andrew's and St Bride's, East Kilbride
“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”.
Hazlehead Academy, Aberdeen
“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”.
CEO Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
“A great video resource on educating young children around online harms and digital safety”
St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School Pupils (East Kilbride)
“This opportunity has helped me both with my story writing and computing skills. I’ve also learned more about how to avoid getting scammed online and I hope our animated stories can help other pupils learn more about avoiding this happening to them too”.
“This whole experience has really taught me to think about what I do online and to learn more about Cyber Security in a fun way. I loved taking part and my teamwork skills have improved too”.
“It’s been educational but in a really enjoyable way and we learned new skills together. We’ve learned to animate and make decisions as a team. We’ve also learned a lot about online safety and the steps we can take to avoid being taken in and scammed”.
St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School Pupils (East Kilbride)
“Taking part with my group has helped us learn to animate a story we’ve created together and to keep myself safer online. People can get easily scammed and it’s important we know how to prevent it.”
“I have really enjoyed this experience, particularly working in a group with other pupils in my class and getting the chance to learn how to animate our own story. I hope what we’ve produced helps other young people learn about scamming and how to stop it happening to them. That would really be good!”
