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Years 6-10 English, health, social studies, digital technology, and any class using discussion boards, blogs, shared docs, media research, or online publishing.
English / Digital communication • Years 6-10 • Ethics, audience, impact
Digital Citizenship
Support ākonga to participate online with whakaaro, evidence, and respect. This handout moves past basic safety into the harder questions: what a digital footprint means, how audience changes meaning, how to disagree with mana, and how online choices affect real people and communities.
Free digital ethics scaffold, premium localising path
This public handout already provides the footprint case study, ethical-posting checks, and class tikanga builder. Te Wānanga becomes useful when you want the same structure rebuilt around your school's platforms, local issue debates, or a specific digital project.
- Swap in your school's platforms, shared spaces, and posting expectations.
- Generate a more visual junior version or a deeper senior media-analysis version.
- Save the adapted page in My Kete and keep refining it in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 30-45 minutes for a full discussion and reflection lesson.
- Grouping: Whole-class modelling first, then pairs or small-group case analysis.
- Prep: Choose whether the class focus is commenting, crediting, sharing, group chat behaviour, or digital footprint.
- Teaching move: Keep the focus on audience, impact, evidence, and fairness rather than only rules.
Resources already provided
- Digital citizenship pillars overview
- Before-you-post decision table
- Digital footprint case-study prompts
- Online tikanga and class-agreement builder
- Differentiated support, core, and stretch pathways
- Teacher-only curriculum companion
If the lesson mentions case studies, posting checks, or class norms, those materials are already on this page.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to explain what responsible digital participation looks like.
- We are learning to think about audience, accuracy, and impact before we post or share.
- We are learning to contribute online in ways that protect our own and others' mana.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can explain how a post, comment, or image might affect different audiences.
- I can use a simple check before I post, share, or respond online.
- I can describe one way to act ethically and respectfully in digital spaces.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
Use the curriculum companion to connect this page to digital and visual texts, respectful discussion, citizenship, and audience-aware communication. The strongest use treats online behaviour as real social participation, not as a separate fake world.
Digital spaces still involve real people
Online words, images, jokes, rumours, and arguments shape real relationships and real reputations. In Aotearoa classrooms, digital citizenship should stay connected to mana, fairness, evidence, and representation. Students need more than "be careful". They need a framework for how to act when they have power to post, share, comment, or amplify.
Pillars of digital citizenship
Be safe
Protect your details, your passwords, and your wellbeing.
Be respectful
Use language and images that uphold the mana of others.
Be accurate
Check before sharing. Not all content is true, complete, or fair.
Be ethical
Give credit, represent others fairly, and do not use media to harm.
Be balanced
Notice when digital spaces help connection and when they increase stress or distraction.
Before you post: a quick check
| Question | What am I checking? | My answer |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Why am I posting this? To inform, connect, persuade, joke, or react? | |
| Accuracy | Do I know this is true, fair, and in context? | |
| Audience | Who could see this now or later? | |
| Impact | How might this affect another person's mana, privacy, or safety? |
Digital footprint case study
Case
A student posts a sarcastic comment and shares a photo from a school event without checking permission. Later the post is screenshotted and spread beyond the original audience.
What are the likely impacts?
What would a better digital-citizenship choice look like?
Online tikanga for our class or group
How we comment
How we credit ideas and images
How we handle disagreement
Different pathways
Support
Use the case study and complete one row of the post-check table with a partner.
Core
Complete the full post-check table, analyse the case study, and draft two online tikanga statements.
Stretch
Create a short class guide or poster about digital citizenship for a real audience.
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Digital Technologies — Hangarau Matihiko
Level 4–5: Understand how digital systems and AI tools work; evaluate the social, cultural, and ethical implications of technology; design and apply computational thinking skills to real problems.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Analyse how technology shapes relationships, power, and identity within communities; evaluate the impacts of digital innovation on society, including effects on Indigenous data sovereignty and cultural representation.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
In te ao Māori, data and knowledge are not neutral — they carry whakapapa and obligations. Māori Data Sovereignty (Mana Motuhake i ngā Raraunga) holds that Māori have the right to govern, own, and interpret data about themselves and their communities. When digital systems are designed without this understanding, they risk perpetuating colonial patterns of extraction: taking knowledge from communities without accountability or benefit-sharing. The concept of kaitiakitanga extends naturally to the digital realm — guardianship of what is collected, stored, and shared about us is as important as guardianship of land, water, and living knowledge systems.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to explore digital kaitiakitanga — applying tikanga Māori principles of guardianship, manaakitanga, and whanaungatanga to their digital lives, spaces, and technologies.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can explain how kaitiakitanga applies to digital environments and online communities.
- ✅ Students can connect tikanga Māori values to ethical decision-making in digital contexts.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters and visual frameworks to scaffold access at the entry level. Offer extension tasks that deepen ethical analysis — for example, comparing digital tikanga principles to international AI ethics frameworks.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key kupu (kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, tikanga) with bilingual glossaries. Allow students to express ideas in their home language first before translating to English.
Inclusion: Chunk tasks and provide clear visual instructions. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured choice in how they demonstrate understanding (e.g., verbal, written, or visual). Affirm diverse digital experiences as valid starting points.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Digital kaitiakitanga frames technology through Te Ao Māori — our digital spaces are extensions of our marae, our data is part of our whakapapa, and our online behaviour reflects our mana. Tikanga Māori provides a powerful ethical compass for navigating the digital world.
Prior knowledge: No specialist digital technology knowledge required for entry-level engagement. Best used after introductory lessons on tikanga Māori or as part of a digital technologies unit.
Curriculum alignment
- Digital Technologies — Knowledge: Understand how digital systems affect people and communities; apply ethical frameworks including tikanga Māori to design and use of technology.
- Identity, Culture, and Organisation: Understand how cultural values — including kaitiakitanga and tikanga — shape participation in digital society.