Back when I was a classroom teacher, I built a free, three-module Canvas course to help with the technology management problems that kept coming up with students. It’s self-paced and works both as a targeted intervention for an individual student and as structured content for an advisory group. Some parts have aged, but districts and individual teachers may still find it a useful starting point.

What’s in the course?

The course covers three competency areas, one per module: 1) notification management and digital wellness, 2) digital privacy and security awareness, and 3) using technology appropriately for the context. Each module follows the same experiential structure, moving from a pre-assessment to hands-on experiments that demonstrate the key ideas, then through multimedia resources and instructor-guided practice to a mastery-based assessment. Students progress by demonstrating competency rather than by finishing pages, and the assessments are built around realistic scenarios with room for reflection and personal goal-setting along the way.

How can schools use it?

I designed it to bend to different situations. Schools can assign a single module based on what a particular student needs, fold the content into an existing advisory program, use it as a structured intervention for recurring technology issues, or run it with anything from one student to a small group. Each module takes about 50 minutes, though it breaks easily into smaller chunks, and spreading a module across several days gives students more time with the experiments.

What do you need?

• Access to Canvas LMS
• A “blank” cell phone for practicing settings management (Android or iPhone)
• Basic printed materials for certain assessments
• An instructor to guide specific activities and verify competency

Where did it come from?

I made the course under a Creative Commons Attribution license to deal with the same technology management problems I saw over and over in a secondary setting, drawing on what I’d read about digital wellness and what I’d learned in my own classroom. The materials live in Canvas, but the design and content can be adapted to other learning management systems. My hope was that it could change as phones and apps change while staying focused on the core digital citizenship skills underneath.

Downloads

If you adapt the course for your school, I’d like to hear how it goes. You can reach me at licht.education@gmail.com, and there are more tools, articles, and resources at bradylicht.com.