New project to transform young people’s internet skills launches today

A recent report by Demos shows that less than one in 10 young people ask who made a website and why. Digital Disruption, a project by Bold Creative, is designed to transform the way young people navigate the internet. Digital Disruption aims to improve young people’s digital judgement by combining traditional critical thinking skills with ‘new’ knowledge about how the digital world works, such as understanding search engines and YouTube.

The Digital Disruption website is a one-stop-hub for teaching these skills across the UK curriculum. It hosts a new suite of free, interactive resources and lesson plans for Years 7-13 and presents the latest news and research around digital literacy: www.digitaldisruption.co.uk

Rebecca Ford, Director of Digital Disruption, said: “Young people are bombarded with bewildering amounts of information online on a daily basis – much of it good, much of it bad – and they need to be equipped to seek out fact from fiction so they can navigate the web on their own terms. We’ve seen first hand from workshops across the UK that young people lack these skills, and teachers are not being provided with the training and resources to teach them – Digital Disruption is the answer.”

Following a successful two year pilot, Bold Creative partnered with Nominet Trust and Demos to research digital literacy in the UK and bring Digital Disruption to a national audience. Demos’ ‘Truth, Lies and the Internet’ report found 99 per cent of teachers surveyed are concerned about their pupils’ digital judgement ability, and that teachers across different subjects lack the resources and training to teach this.

In the past year young people have worked with education, research and media professionals on Digital Disruption to develop resources that respond to key issues identified in Demos’ report. The teaching tools can be used on their own or as an extended framework of work around online source checking, deconstructing propaganda, conspiracy theories and much more.

"At Nominet Trust, we believe that young people should be given the know-how to safely access the vast array of opportunities that digital technology presents, rather than being locked or blocked from it. Young people’s digital savvy is often overestimated by the older generation, which is why projects such as Digital Disruption are so valuable. These resources give young people the skills they need to critically evaluate the information that is presented to them via the internet.”
Annika Small, CEO, Nominet Trust

‘Truth, Lies and the Internet: A Report into Young People’s Digital Fluency’ by Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller was published by Demos on 30^th September 2011 included the results of a survey with 500 UK teachers about their pupil’s digital fluency.