Schools
Digital citizenship
The skills and habits for using technology safely, kindly, and honestly, including how to check AI, protect privacy, and treat other people online.
- Educators and school leaders
- Parents
What parents should know
Digital citizenship is how a child behaves with technology when nobody is scoring them. It now includes AI: what to type, what to believe, and what not to generate about another person. Lessons stick better when the class has a real tool and a teacher who can see the example.
On this page
What is digital citizenship?
Older digital-citizenship lessons covered passwords, kindness, copyright, and scams. AI adds new habits. Check a fluent answer. Do not upload a friend's photo. Say when a machine helped. Close a chat that asks for secrecy. UNESCO's AI competency work for students puts this kind of judgment next to technical skill, not after it.
Citizenship is practice, not a poster. A single assembly will not outlast a nightly chatbot. The useful unit is short and repeated: one claim to verify, one thing we do not type, one person to tell if a message is scary.
Why digital citizenship matters
Schools that ban AI and schools that ignore it both skip the habit. Students will use a tool somewhere. Citizenship is the difference between a hidden tab and a cited, limited, adult-visible use.
Parents are the other classroom. If home says the bot is a friend who keeps secrets, and school says show your work, the child learns to split. Align the sentence. Otto is an assistant. We can read the chat. We check the facts.
How it shows up in practice
- A class verifies one AI sentence against a source and writes what matched.
- Students practice refusing a prompt that uses a classmate's real name.
- A counselor and a teacher use the same script for a scary message: tell an adult, do not forward harmful files.
- A family copies the school's AI rule onto the fridge for a month.
- Students practice saying, out loud, that Otto is an assistant and not a friend who keeps secrets from the adults at home.
How HeyOtto helps
HeyOtto for Schools gives a class a real assistant to practice on. Students use Otto, and a teacher can see the session, so the citizenship lesson can use the actual prompt instead of a hypothetical one. At home, a parent can ask what the child checked. The product is for ages 8–18, with a parent-created family account. It does not replace a curriculum. It gives the curriculum a transcript.
- Homework help models the honest version: a step, then the student's try.
- Kid-safe search shows sources the class can open.
- Topic limits and parent visibility back up the house rule.
For schools
Request a demoFAQs
Is digital citizenship a separate class?
It can be a unit, and it can live inside English, science, and advisory. UNESCO's student AI framework treats judgment as part of using AI, not as an elective. A separate class helps only if the habits show up in real assignments.
What AI habits belong on the list?
Check a claim, cite help the teacher asked you to cite, keep other people's photos and secrets out of prompts, and tell an adult about threats or scary chats. HeyOtto's transcript lets a teacher or parent see whether the habit happened.
How young is too young?
HeyOtto's family product starts at age 8, with a parent on the account. Younger children need you beside them. Teens need the rule even when they want privacy. Citizenship is not a one-time talk in elementary school.
Does a filter replace citizenship?
No. A filter blocks some harm. Citizenship is what the child does with the rest. You want the limit and the habit. Schools can turn tools off by age and still teach the check.
Sources
Last reviewed September 26, 2026. This entry is reviewed twice a year.