About Applied Digital Skills
Applied Digital Skills is an online digital skills curriculum that is free of charge. Lessons and materials are appropriate for a wide range of learners, from middle school to college, and beyond. Applied Digital Skills lessons are located on a new platform created with Intellum.
The Applied Digital Skills curriculum uses a series of videos to guide learners through creating a project from scratch. This means that learners who complete a lesson leave with a useful project, such as a resume, a college planning sheet, or an interactive story.
How we Define Digital Literacy
The Applied Digital Skills curriculum was created as a resource to help teachers, parents, students and adult learners gain practical digital skills to improve overall digital literacy. But what do we mean by “digital skills” and “digital literacy”?
When we reference “digital skills” in our lessons and on our website, we are talking about the knowledge a person needs to use technology and digital tools. Building digital skills focuses on “the how” of using technology and digital tools such as Google Docs and Google Slides.
Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice
The Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice applies, by its terms, to the collection and use of information with a Google Workspace for Education account. The Applied Digital Skills Curriculum can be used with a Google Workspace for Education account. Thus, when the work is done within the apps of Google Workspace for Education, the Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice applies.
Language options
Applied Digital Skills only offers lessons in English and Spanish.
Accessibility options
Applied Digital Skills aims to be accessible for all users, which means we have taken efforts to make the curriculum easier to use without the need for specialized hardware. Each of the following options explain how Applied Digital Skills lessons can be used with accessibility tools and how Applied Digital Skills includes accessibility options in our lessons.
To access the transcript for a video:
- From the video page of a lesson, click the arrow next to Transcript, directly below the video player.
How to use Google Classroom (or your preferred LMS) with Applied Digital Skills
While a direct integration with Google Classroom is no longer available, you can still easily use Applied Digital Skills lessons with Google Classroom or your preferred learning management system (LMS).
Use Google Classroom or your preferred LMS to:
- Manage your classes and rosters
- Create and grade assignments
- Link the Applied Digital Skills lesson
- Collect student work
Use Applied Digital Skills to:
- Browse for digital skills lessons
- Deliver lessons through provided videos
Teaching materials
All lessons in the Applied Digital Skills curriculum come with helpful and guiding materials, including lesson plans and, for many lessons, rubrics and reflections. These materials are available to anyone taking a lesson.
Lesson Plans
All Applied Digital Skills lessons have accompanying lesson plans.
Lesson plans include:
- Learning objectives
- Digital skills
- Example outcomes
- Tips and guidance for instructors
Instructors can make a copy of the lesson plan, save it to their own Google Drive, and make edits to customize the lessons for their classroom.
Rubrics
Most lessons in the middle and high school curriculum also include project evaluation rubrics. These enable teachers to evaluate a student’s work across a variety of skills and levels of proficiency (i.e. beginner, developing, accomplished, and exemplary).
Instructors can make a copy of the rubric, save it to their own Google Drive, and make edits to customize the grading to their standards.
Quizzes
Learners have the option to complete a quiz at the end of each lesson. These quizzes are structured with multiple choice questions and free response questions.
After a student submits a quiz, the graded assessment will only be of the multiple choice questions. After a student has submitted a quiz and seen their percentage, students can retake the quiz by selecting the Retake button at the top of the quiz page.
Applied Digital Skills Certificates of Completion
To show your students’ achievement in completing a lesson, Applied Digital Skills offers printable certificates to celebrate and document completion of a lesson. These are available for all lessons. Anyone can fill out and print a certificate from a lesson’s overview page. After completing the lesson navigate to the Teaching Materials section of a lesson and then select Certificate of Completion.
Bookmark your Favorite Lessons
Users have the opportunity to bookmark their favorite lessons by selecting the heart icon on each lesson. These lessons will appear in the Favorites section of your profile.
Search Feature & Filtering Lessons
On the new website, you'll find a Search feature in the top right corner of every page. To search for lessons, simply select the Search button, type your query into the text box that appears, and you'll be taken to a results page. Here, you can filter lessons using various options. To remove your selected filters, just choose the Clear Filters button on the right side of the page.
Topic Following
This help center article details the Topic Following feature on Intellum.
Explore a Topic lessons
The Applied Digital Skills curriculum includes a number of research-based lessons that allow students to explore different topics on their own with less prescription.
In these lessons, students select a topic pertaining to a broader subject (like Women’s History or Technology at Work), research their topic, then create a project with their findings to share with the class.
Extension lessons
Many of our lessons include an extended set of videos that teach additional skills.
Often, these extension videos will relate specifically to the project created in the main lesson. For example, if students are creating a spreadsheet to organize a club in the main lesson, the extension lessons will teach additional spreadsheet skills relating to that same project.
Extensions are a great option for:
- Fostering independent exploration for students who move through a lesson quickly
- Encouraging creativity and choice in a final project
- Learning and practicing additional skills
The skills taught in these extension lessons are generally not included in lesson assessments or rubrics. Examples of extension lesson outcomes are included in most lesson plans.
Access Issues with Student Project Links
If you or your students are having trouble opening the project links below a video, then the problem is most likely due to your school's administrator/technology settings. We suggest contacting your school’s IT administrator for help resolving this issue.
For help finding your administrator, read this article. Once you know who your IT administrator is, have your IT administrator check to see if firewall restrictions are blocking the Applied Digital Skills website. If that is not the issue, have you your IT administrator review the following recommendations below to be completed in the Google Admin Console:
- Whitelist https://edu.exceedlms.com (content is hosted on this site)
- Whitelist the domain applieddigitalskills.google (.google is the top-level domain (TLD); Many project files originate from this domain)
- Exempt storage.googleapis.com from DPI-SSL inspection (which allows any additional curriculum videos stored here to play)
If you want to access documents without contacting your administrator, here are two options to try:
- Access with your teacher account: Open the document/starter project link from your teacher account, make a copy, then share it with students.
- Access with a non-school email: Open the document/starter project link from an account that is not associated with your school's domain, make a copy, share it with your school account email account, make a copy, and then share it with your students.
Feedback
If you have feedback regarding Applied Digital Skills, please use this form.