Digital citizenship education with 3–5-year-olds in an Australian kindergarten

In an increasingly digitally complex world, it is important that young children develop an understanding of digital technology. Digital Citizenship Education is often introduced in primary school or even secondary school contexts. However, recent research has called for introducing Digital Citizenship Education earlier to include children attending early childhood education and care settings. This study reports on a project where an early childhood educator and researchers co-designed a learning experience related to Digital Citizenship Education. The Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship programme, while designed for children in school settings, was used to begin conversations with the team about what Digital Citizenship Education could look like for children in a kindergarten setting (children aged 3–5 years) in Australia. The purpose of this study was to examine how Digital Citizenship Education could be implemented in an early childhood context with young children. Together, the educator and researchers designed a learning experience suitable for the context with a focus on the concept of digital footprints, a concept that helps children to understand how they might leave identifiable data about themselves available online. We detail the study as a single case and explore two themes that were apparent throughout the process, which constitute the major findings of this research. Firstly, young children require concrete language to facilitate understandings of Digital Citizenship and secondly, educator knowledge and pedagogies concerning Digital Citizenship need further support. This study concludes that educators need further support and explicit examples of practice so they can understand how Digital Citizenship Education can be embedded within an early childhood setting. This study concludes by reiterating the importance of developing learning experiences that are appropriate to each context, while providing scope for educators to draw on their own knowledge and experience.