A guide to
Cambridge Lower Secondary
Digital Literacy
Introduction
Digital literacy is an essential skill for learners of all ages. The digital world allows us to connect, collaborate, innovate and discover new information on an ever-broadening scale. Learners should be able to use technology effectively throughout their educational journey.
Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy learners:
- are empowered to use digital technology safely and are able to protect their own physical and emotional wellbeing
- analyse and reflect on the opportunities and issues presented by technology from different perspectives
- develop the transferrable skills needed to access digital technology, to communicate digitally and to access careers in the workplaces of the future
- understand their place, and the place of others, in an interconnected world
- make informed decisions about the information that they encounter and share digitally
- understand the role of digital technology in society and are able to contribute to that society.
Teaching Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy
The curriculum is flexible. You can teach it:
- through dedicated, regular timetabled lessons
- through dedicated project work
- within other subjects.
You will need to decide the approach that best suits your context through collaboration across your school. If you decide to teach Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy within other subjects, you will need to carefully plan and identify opportunities to cover important content. For example:
- Make sure learners have increasing responsibility for their own safety, wellbeing and conduct in online spaces. Wherever possible, this content will be based on the platforms your learners are using, or that they aspire to use as they get older.
- Provide regular opportunities for learners to explore, experiment with and evaluate a range of software. They can then begin to make their own choices about what they will use in each scenario.
- Provide regular opportunities for learners to search for and select information from the internet.
- Provide regular opportunities for learners to research, discuss and evaluate the increasing role that digital technologies are playing in a range of local and global contexts.
We provide a wide range of practical resources, detailed guidance, innovative training and professional development so that you can give your learners the best possible experience of Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy.
We believe that for teaching and learning to be effective, there should be alignment between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. We have designed Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy around this principle:
Curriculum – taken from Lower Secondary Digital Literacy Curriculum Framework
9DW.04 Understand what is meant by the digital divide and how this affects different areas of society both locally and globally.
Pedagogy – activity taken from the Stage 9 Scheme of Work
Learners take on the role of a local politician who intends to get elected based upon the promise ‘I will break down the digital divide’.
They design strategies to eliminate the digital divide in your country based upon effective research using digital resources. They choose a specific aspect of the divide, for example financial causes or providing information and support to those who have not yet engaged with the technologies that are available to them.
Learners present their strategies using digital resources. They are creative when doing this, for example that they could role-play being a politician and present their strategy via a video.
Assessment
Learners combine two aspects of digital literacy by producing a digital output that effectively presents their learning about an aspect of the impact of digital technology.
They share their outputs with other learners and get feedback. They consider the changes they should make to improve the output.
Curriculum Framework
The Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy Curriculum Framework is available to download on the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. It provides a comprehensive set of learning objectives that give a structure for teaching and learning and can be used to assess learners’ attainment and skills development.
We have divided the learning objectives into three main areas called ‘strands’ which run through every stage.
Although the three strands are separate, they work together to provide a holistic approach to understanding, evaluating, operating in and contributing to the digital world.
We have designed the learning objectives to ensure progression in learning from Stage 7 to Stage 9. You can download a Progression Grid, that outlines the progression for all learning objectives across all stages, from the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Find information from the Progression Grid
Find information from the Progression Grid
In the Progression Grid, identify the stage that you will be teaching, and the prior knowledge that learners are expected to have. It is important to ensure that this prior knowledge is secure before moving on to new skills and knowledge.
Below are some examples of how knowledge, understanding and skills progress across the stages:
Curriculum Framework
The Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy Curriculum Framework is available to download on the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. It provides a comprehensive set of learning objectives that give a structure for teaching and learning and can be used to assess learners’ attainment and skills development.
We have divided the learning objectives into three main areas called ‘strands’ which run through every stage.
Although the three strands are separate, they work together to provide a holistic approach to understanding, evaluating, operating in and contributing to the digital world.
We have designed the learning objectives to ensure progression in learning from Stage 7 to Stage 9. You can download a Progression Grid, that outlines the progression for all learning objectives across all stages, from the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Find information from the Progression Grid
Find information from the Progression Grid
In the Progression Grid, identify the stage that you will be teaching, and the prior knowledge that learners are expected to have. It is important to ensure that this prior knowledge is secure before moving on to new skills and knowledge.
Below are some examples of how knowledge, understanding and skills progress across the stages:
| Learning objective examples | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Strand | Stage 7 | Stage 8 | Stage 9 |
| Tools and Content Creation | Use track changes and comments when editing documents. | Create templates and master documents and understand the benefit of these. | Create a portfolio of documents for a common purpose. |
| Safety and Wellbeing | Understand that all online activity can be collated and added to a user's digital footprint, which can have positive and negative consequences. | Understand that metadata can be sold as a product. | Explain how search engines provide personalised search results based on metadata, included targeted advertising. |
| The digital World | Discuss and make predictions about future technologies. | Describe the benefits and risks of the Internet of Things. | Describe the benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence. |
Pedagogy
The Curriculum Framework gives you a list of learning objectives for each stage. Our support materials then give you guidance on:
- the order in which to teach the objectives
- ways of grouping them
- how to split the objectives into smaller steps, and how to differentiate to make the work easier or harder
- suitable activities through which to teach
- ideas for active learning.
Our support materials include:
- Progression Grid
- Schemes of Work
- Teacher Guide
- Training
Find and access these support materials, on the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site. You can find more general information about these support materials on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
The curriculum is designed to be taught using a broad range of activities and/or projects that promote experience, reflection, understanding and improvement. Learners will benefit from discussing their digital literacy in contexts that are familiar to them. Activities that encourage them to reflect on their own online activities, including online gaming and social media, will be extremely useful. This will be especially true if learners can share examples of their own experiences with their peers. These discussions will support learners to make decisions about their responsibilities more effectively than simply giving them a list of rules about their online behaviours.
When using digital tools to create outputs, such as text documents, audio/visual, and multimedia presentations, learners will benefit from opportunities to explore the tools that are available to them. They can then make their own choices based on their observations. A digitally literate learner can evaluate tools and apply their findings, not just follow a specific set of instructions for using a particular piece of software.
The learning objectives in the three strands of the Curriculum Framework support an integrated approach to teaching and learning. In many cases, the content of the Safety and Wellbeing and The Digital World strands provide a context or stimulus for using digital tools with a purpose in the Tools and Content Creation strand.
Create an activity
Create an activity
To help you to consider this approach further, use the table below to plan an activity that would address the two learning objectives. You can use the Schemes of Work to give you ideas at each stage.
| Learning objectives | Example activity | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 7 | 7TC.03 Know that files can be stored remotely on other computers, networks or in the cloud. | 7DW.04 Understand that the storage capacity of a device is limited. | |
| Stage 8 | 8TC.04 Understand when it is appropriate to use informal ways to convey emotion or meaning in an electronic message, for example emojis, gifs and memes. | 8DW.03 Describe how digital technology is changing the workplace. | |
| Stage 9 | 9TC.02 Use devices to create increasingly sophisticated digital artefacts, including the use of sound, video, text and other multimedia. | 9SW.05 Understand that they have personal responsibility for their digital activity, safety and wellbeing. | |
For more information on the approaches to teaching and learning in Cambridge Lower Secondary Digital Literacy, refer to Section 3.4 of the Teacher Guide.
Assessment Guidance
Assessment guidance provides support and advice on how to assess learners in the classroom, including:
- examples of how teaching and learning activities can be assessed
- approach to recording achievement
- approaches to reporting results.
There is no Cambridge Lower Secondary Progression Test or Checkpoint for this subject.
Find the Assessment guidance on the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
You can find more general information about Assessment guidance on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
Assessment Guidance
Assessment guidance provides support and advice on how to assess learners in the classroom, including:
- examples of how teaching and learning activities can be assessed
- approach to recording achievement
- approaches to reporting results.
Find the Assessment guidance on the Digital Literacy (0082) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
You can find more general information about Assessment guidance on the About Cambridge Lower Secondary page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.
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