EducationWeek
The proliferation of fake news stories and conspiracy theories on social media, as well as rising concerns that these platforms are hurting kids’ mental health, have put digital literacy and citizenship in the spotlight.

But there’s a lot we don’t know about how those skills are being taught in K-12 schools, said Allison Starks, a researcher who studies child development and technology. What specific skills are schools teaching—or not—and in which classes? And do educators even feel like this is their responsibility?

“The driving force for the study was just trying to understand what’s happening in schools around this kind of instruction because after an in-depth research review, I couldn’t find anything,” said Starks, who is a former special education teacher and district technology coordinator and a current doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine. “Even just the presence of standards across the U.S., we don’t have any consistent standards for these things.”

To answer those questions, Starks partnered with the nonprofit Project Tomorrow, which administers the annual Speak Up survey, to hear directly from a large swath of educators, parents, and students.

In a phone interview with Education Week, she shared her early insights from her research. MORE