Curriculum Documents

Introduction

This curriculum was created to provide in-person training to both K-12 students experiencing the homework gap and their caregivers, on a wide range of digital literacy topics and digital skills using many existing learning resources.

Format Variants: Two groups vs. Combined Group

In this model, both students and adults receive instruction so that families increase their digital literacy together. Including material for both age groups presented some logistical issues for implementing libraries. To accommodate the needs of the facilitators, multiple versions of each workshop are available. When downloading curriculum documents for most workshops, there will be an option to select "Two Groups" for an agenda that instructs adults and students separately or "Combined Group" for an agenda that covers the same material with families attending together as covered in the toolkit.

Instructor Guides

Instructor guides include an overview, an outline with estimated durations for workshop activities, and a script. The script was requested by facilitators during the initial use of the curriculum and is particularly useful for facilitators with less digital literacy instruction experience.

Handouts

Handouts are all editable. It was often useful for local facilitators to add their contact information, reminders for the next session, etc. to the adult handouts. Digital versions of the handouts for each group of learners were made available online as well and URLs for those documents were added to printed versions, often as a short link. This is particularly helpful for handouts with many web addresses embedded. It might be useful for participants to bookmark a cloud storage folder where all workshop documents will be posted.

Various Skill Levels Among Participants

One challenge of this model is that participants, particularly the caregivers, do not necessarily begin at similar digital skill levels. Two accommodations were made during the original implementation. First, participants were allowed to self-select relevant topics with an attendance requirement of only 6 out of 8 workshops. Second, material for each session was designed to allow for the skill level of attending participants. Facilitators could choose to spend time on the more basic skills or in discussion of more complex concepts depending on the needs of present participants. Additional resources provided in each session also include options for continued self-paced learning at basic and advanced levels. Still, some adults would benefit for more in-depth basic computer instruction and were often invited to use book-a-librarian sessions for those skills.

Virtual and Hybrid Programs

An online curriculum for K-12 caregivers is available. It follows the same schedule of topics, and so can be used alongside this curriculum as self-guided modules for additional learning or for participants who miss some sessions. It can also be used in a hybrid program that holds some sessions in-person and some virtual. Use the following links to access the virtual curriculum:

Documents

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