Free Video Library Supports Digital Citizenship & Well-Being

One of the most practical ways to build a strong digital citizenship and digital well-being culture is to use short videos that feel relevant to students and are easy to discuss.

That is why this free Take Back video library is such a useful resource. The videos are designed to spark real conversations about online life, attention, identity, and healthy habits. And what makes them especially powerful is that they are made by students, for students. (Take Back video library)

These videos come from The Take Back resources page and connect to the broader Take Back movement, which focuses on helping young people and communities build healthier, more intentional relationships with media and technology. (The Take Back resources) (The Take Back).

This work is part of the (Take Two Media Initiative), which is dedicated to enhancing media literacy and wellbeing. Their Media Lab program empowers young people with the tools to lead. Through hands-on training in media literacy, well-being, and digital citizenship, students become Media Ambassadors - capable of delivering powerful talks and workshops to peers, parents, and educators.

Why student-made videos matter

Adults can say all the right things about digital citizenship, and students will still tune out if it feels like another lecture.

Student-created videos change the dynamic:

• The language sounds like peers, not policy

• The scenarios feel current, not generic

• The message lands as “this is for us,” not “this is being done to us”

The broader Take Back work also emphasizes youth leadership, with students taking on roles as ambassadors and peer educators. (thetakebackbook.com)

A simple way to use these videos that consistently works: Frame, Focus, Follow Up

The difference between showing a video and teaching with a video is what happens before and after the play button.

I use Frame, Focus, Follow Up, a quick structure that helps students watch with purpose and then do something meaningful with what they saw. (Frame, Focus + Follow Up)

Here is how it looks with digital citizenship and digital well-being content.

1) Frame (1 to 2 minutes)

Set students up to connect the video to real life.

• What is this video about in one sentence?

• Where do you see this issue show up for students right now?

• Why might a student have wanted to make this video?

The point is to activate context, not deliver a lecture.

2) Focus (30 seconds)

Give students a positive lens to watch through.

Choose one:

• Notice a strategy the student creators suggest for staying in control of your time or attention.

• Listen for a moment that shows what healthy online behavior can look like.

• Watch for one idea you want to try, and one idea you want to share with a friend.

• Pay attention to how the video models empathy, boundaries, or self-awareness.

This keeps the viewing grounded in agency and possibility.

3) Follow Up (5 to 8 minutes)

Make the learning visible.

Fast follow-up options:

• One-minute write: “What is one move I could try this week to improve my digital well-being?”

• Turn and talk: “What felt true, and what felt helpful?”

• Small group: “What is one norm we could strengthen in our school community?”

This is where student voice shows up, not just student compliance. 

Ready-to-use prompts that keep the tone constructive

These work with almost any clip in the library:

• What is one takeaway that helps you navigate online spaces with more confidence?

• What is one boundary that would make online life feel lighter or less stressful?

• What is one way to support a friend who is dealing with online drama or pressure?

• What is one habit you want to strengthen, and what would make it easier?

• What would it look like if our class or school got really good at digital well-being?

Where this fits in a school plan

This is a resource you can use without building a new program from scratch.

• Advisory or homeroom: one short video each week using the same routine

• Family engagement: one video plus a few discussion questions

• Student leadership: invite students to curate a playlist and facilitate the discussion

If you are looking for a free, student-centered way to support digital citizenship and digital well-being, this library is a strong place to start.

Carpool Conversations: A Podcast & Game Cards That Build Digital Judgment

Common Sense Media’s Carpool Conversations offers a simple, scalable idea: short audio prompts that help adults and kids talk about the issues shaping students’ digital lives. Episodes are two minutes or less and use familiar verbal game structures to make it easier to start real conversations without turning them into lectures.

The companion resource is what makes this a great resource to use with families or at school: printable Family Activity Game Cards. The cards remove friction. No speakers. No tech setup. No “the link won’t load.” Just a prompt and a follow-up question ready for advisory, homeroom, a bellringer, or a take-home family engagement routine.

Why this matters right now

Schools are under pressure to respond to phones, social media conflict, misinformation, and artificial intelligence (AI). Many systems default to control moves: bans, stricter enforcement, and “just put the devices away.” Those moves can reduce exposure. They do not build judgment.

Judgment is built through guided practice and language. Students need repeated opportunities to talk through digital-life scenarios before those scenarios go sideways.

The game cards are the scalability lever

Audio is useful when you want modeling. The adult-child pairing signals curiosity and empathy.

The game cards make the strategy easier to adopt widely:

• No audio needed

• Easy to print and distribute

• Quick to facilitate in small groups

• Simple to send home as a weekly routine

Each card follows a tight structure: a fact, a prompt, and a follow-up question. That structure is the real innovation. It is a teaching move schools can repeat and adapt.

A note on naming: carpool, commute, and everywhere in between

The title “carpool” fits some communities literally. In big cities, these are often more like commute conversations: on public transit, walking, or in rideshares. The setting changes, but the strategy holds. The goal is to turn everyday micro-moments into guided practice talking through digital-life decisions.

How to use this tomorrow

This works in advisory, homeroom, or as a bellringer.

A 7-minute routine:

1. Play one short episode or read one game card

2. Silent think, 30 seconds

3. Turn-and-talk on the main prompt, 2 minutes

4. Answer the follow-up question in writing, 2 minutes

5. Share-out with one norm, 30 seconds

Start with a norm that prevents the conversation from turning into gossip: “Speak from your experience, not someone else’s story.”

Family engagement that does not require a workshop

This is a realistic family engagement model because it does not demand a big time commitment.

A simple approach:

• Share one prompt weekly

• Offer both formats: audio and printable card

• Keep the ask low stakes: one conversation, not homework

• Make the tone connection-focused, not compliance-focused

Sample message schools can adapt:
“This week’s conversation is two minutes. Try it in the car, on the commute, walking home, or at dinner. One question. No lecture. If your child shares one takeaway, that is a win.”

Bottom line

Schools cannot filter their way into student judgment. If we want students to make better decisions online, they need practice talking through decisions with adults who model curiosity and restraint. Carpool Conversations and the companion game cards provide a low-lift structure for that practice, in cars, on commutes, and everywhere families find two minutes together.

Responsible AI Use Starts With the Learning Goal, Not a Tool Ban

Some educators say they are “preparing students for AI” by going back to pencil and paper.

That's not preparation. It's avoidance. 

In my latest article for Tech & Learning, I argue that responsible use of AI does not start with bans or fear-driven rollbacks. It starts with clarity about the learning goal. When educators are intentional about what students are learning, AI can be used to support thinking, provide feedback, and extend creativity without replacing student work.

The question is not whether students should use AI. They already are. The real question is whether schools will help them use it well.

Read the full article in Tech & Learning at: Empowering Students with AI Starts with the Learning Goal here.

Chatting with Machines: How AI Companions Are Impacting Students

Teens are not just using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Many are forming relationships with AI companions. That shift has real implications for student development, emotional well-being, and how young people define connection.

I published a piece in Tech and Learning that looks at what the research is telling us, why moves like Character.AI’s under-18 ban matter, and what educators and families can do right now to respond with clarity instead of panic. I also highlight examples of age-appropriate tools that aim to keep chat interactions purposeful, supervised, and grounded in learning.

If you are supporting students in a world where AI is always available, always responsive, and increasingly personal, this is a conversation we cannot avoid. Here is the article: Chatting with Machines: What Adults Should Know About Student Use of AI Companions

As you read, consider this question: What are we doing in schools and at home to help students recognize the difference between helpful support and unhealthy dependence, and to build the human relationship skills they will need for life?

Common Sense Education is pausing EdTech reviews. Here is what schools can do next.

Common Sense Education has shared that its EdTech review pages are no longer being updated, and it will take a break from EdTech reviews beginning February 2026.

That matters because so many educators have used those reviews as a quick first filter when deciding what tools to bring into classrooms.

I wrote a new article for Tech & Learning that breaks down what is changing and, more importantly, where educators can look next for decision support, including how to use the EdTech Index from ISTE+ASCD to narrow options using validation badges and quality indicators.

Visit Tech & Learning to read the full article. 

Dr. Lahana’s Multimodal Makerspace: A Reality Check for the “Laptops Broke Kids” Narrative

This school year, I had another chance to visit PS/MS 188, The Island School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to spend time in Dr. Lou Lahana’s makerspace. We came to observe how he uses technology as a tool for instruction. What we saw was different from the tech rooms many people are familiar with.

The first thing you notice is that the room does not look like a computer lab. It looks like a workshop.

Yes, there are laptops with Adobe software. But they share space with woodworking tools, sewing machines, Legos, craft supplies, audio equipment, robotics kits, markers, and piles of student projects. Students do not start with a device. They start with an idea, then choose the medium that makes sense for what they are trying to say.

A project might involve filming, coding, building, drawing, composing music, or designing a board game. Often, it is a mix.

This is not a new story at The Island School. Years ago, I wrote about visiting the school’s Internet Cafe and meeting Lou, the school’s techbrarian, and how students were already publishing for real audiences beyond the classroom in a place that functioned as a tech center by day and a Scholar’s Lab by night: You Can Get a Dalton Education at a NYC Public School.

If you want to go straight to Lou’s own thinking and examples, his work lives here: Techbrarian.

A “Techbrarian” Approach to Talent Development and Social Action

Over the past couple of decades, Dr. Lahana has built and used this makerspace to explore his work as a self-described techbrarian, an educator who uses instructional technology and media to support talent development and social action in young people.

That framing matters. The makerspace is not about learning tools for the sake of tools. It is about using tools to do something that matters.

If you have followed my writing for a while, you have seen this through line in his work. In 2018, I described walking into his Tech Cafe and realizing you were not entering a space where students were being prepared for the future. You were entering a space where students were doing the work of making the world better right now: The Key to Differentiated Learning: Develop Student Experts.

In Dr. Lahana’s room, students are pushed to explore social issues, research them, and then create something that communicates their learning and their stance. The something could be a video, a podcast, a product, a physical build, a piece of art, or an experience. The medium follows the message.

This aligns with what I have written about for years at The Island School, including how models like the Schoolwide Enrichment Model can exist in public schools and how passion-driven work changes what students believe they are capable of: Preparing Students for Success by Helping Them Discover and Develop Their Passions.

Student Work in Action: Animal Rights and Artivism

On the day of our visit, middle school students were deep into a project focused on animal rights. Students were buzzing around the room, working with their hands, collaborating naturally, and staying anchored in a meaningful problem they were trying to understand.

Some were preparing for an upcoming craft sale, making bracelets, buttons, jewelry, and stamped sweatshirts. Their goal was not just to sell items. They were raising money for animal welfare organizations and connecting their making to real world impact.

Other students were creating artivism pieces, including music, podcasts, and video recordings, exploring how art can shift how people think about animal cruelty and ethical consumption.

What stood out was not just the variety of products. It was the seriousness of the conversations happening alongside the making. Students moved between mediums while discussing animal rights with real depth and clarity.

This is also consistent with what I have seen when Island School students are treated as individuals with strengths, interests, and preferred ways to show what they know. Years ago, I shared how students used talent profiles and how one student’s passion for transit became an opportunity to learn deeply and create a video with Lou’s support: Profile of a Passion-Driven Student.

Why This Matters Right Now

Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath’s recent book and article argue that when we gave students laptops, student performance declined, so the tech broke their brains. It is a clean story with a clear villain: technology.

It is also the wrong diagnosis.

I wrote about this directly in: Laptops Did Not Take Away Their Brains. The School Model Did.

That “tech broke kids” storyline skips the real culprits:

High-stakes standardized testing reshaped public schooling. It narrowed what counts as learning, accelerated pacing pressure, and pushed schools toward measurables over meaning.

Inequitable access to effective models of learning is the real divide. The gap is not who gets devices. The gap is who gets powerful learning experiences where technology is used to research, create, build, iterate, publish, and act, and who gets drill and test prep, whether on paper or on a screen.

Dr. Lahana’s makerspace is what the broken-brains argument misses. In his room, technology is available, but it is not the focus. It is one option among many. Students have learned to choose tools to match their intent. They make things for real audiences. They learn through a mix of research, design, collaboration, iteration, and action.

If we want better outcomes, we need to stop blaming devices and start redesigning learning models. We need more environments like this, spaces where students can build, compose, design, publish, advocate, and create.

And we need to be honest: students do not need less technology. They need better learning.