Digital Adwise Curriculum

Designed by the United Kingdom (UK)-based, non-profit media literacy programme Media Smart, this online teaching pack intends to instruct primary school students about online and digital advertisement.

Media Smart defines this type of advertising as the promotion of products, brands, and other information using the internet and digital platforms such as mobile phones, email, and video games. Digital Adwise aims to help children recognise and understand digital marketing communications, such as viral marketing, the use of social marketing sites, and online games, and to teach them the media literacy and critical thinking skills they need to choose wisely and protect themselves.

Digital Adwise can be downloaded free of charge and used on whiteboards or classroom computers. At its centre are 10 interactive online lessons to be used by individuals or small groups on classroom computers. The teachers' section of the Digital Adwise website provides access the 10 Digital Adwise lesson plans, along with supplementary material such as teachers' notes, a glossary of new media terms, and some suggested additional resources. The topics of the lessons are as follows:

1. What is an advert?
2. Spot the ad
3. What's in a digital ad?
4. Branding online (commercial branding)
5. Branding online (non-commercial branding)
6. Targeting the audience
7. Selling ideas, part 1 (looking at animals in ads)
8. Selling ideas, part 2 (designing an "animal" banner ad)
9. Personal data
10. How websites make money

These materials use real examples of advertising to teach core media literacy skills.