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A Framework for Digital Training: Provisional Licenses

What’s the path for teens and preteens once the Congressional hearings on social media wrap up?  Ideas are likely to come from the transportation field.  There will be talk about using guardrails to keep social media in its place and slow down users. And then there will be a push towards civic education and instruction.  

So, a provisional digital license/phone  may sound suitable and it is something I have campaigned for over a number of years. Before we let kids go online, they need to be fortified with targeted classroom instruction, parental guidance, and real-time experience- just like in driver’s education. Earning a phone is not automatic– kids commit to doing the homework and completing challenges before they are safe on their own.

As in motoring, it takes a decade or longer after a technology emerges for the instructional need to be recognized. It was not until 1932 that drivers education classes were taught in the U.S.  For digital education, it has taken nearly 12 years after the initial iPhone  for digital education to get mandated.

Curriculums:

Today, just four states have a mandate for this: Texas, Delaware, New Jersey and California. In principle, California has begun the framework for a provisional license. It requires the state’s Instructional Quality Commission to slowly roll out a curriculum framework  while considering how to incorporate media literacy content into English language arts, math, science, history and social science lessons. 

But, if we are going to have an effective program in digital education, we might want to borrow some more ideas from driver’s education. 

In the following table, I compare the two programs on some basics: