LACOE, in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District's Instructional Technology Initiative (ITI) and the Association of California School Administrators Region 16 (ACSA), hosted the 4th Annual Digital Citizenship Conference this past weekend. More than 270 individuals representing over 30 different school districts attended to explore best practices to engaging students and helping them learn the importance of being great digital citizens.

During the pandemic, LAUSD hosted DigCitCon as a way to engage educators during a challenging time in which technology use rapidly increased. They wanted to ensure educators were aware of the best practices of navigating and using technology safely. This was the fourth DigCitCon and it was held in-person to engage individuals in a hands-on in-person learning experience that they may not have gotten virtually from previous years.

Digital citizenship is needed even more so now than ever because of the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, which is why this year’s theme was "Digital Citizenship in the Age of AI." Attendees listened to a variety of individuals, from students to educators to school administrators, to those working in the private sector and even from Common Sense Education, on how to leverage and engage in technology in a safe and responsible way, especially in the age of AI. They learned best practices on a range of topics from media literacy to internet safety to social media safety. Participants also got to hear from LAUSD’s superintendent and LACOE’s chief technology officer on where they see AI going and why digital citizenship is so important to our youth today.

DigCitCon was the culmination of Digital Citizenship Week. Digital Citizenship week is the third week of October and was founded by Common Sense Education 11 years ago to helped reinforce and educate our students of the importance of safe, responsible, and meaningful technology use in school, at home, and the real world.   

Working with LAUSD and ACSA Region 16 was a wonderful experience and reflects the fact that when everyone works together, we can achieve great things. LACOE is proud to collaborate and looks forward to collaborating more with LAUSD, as well as any other school district that wishes to collaborate with us.

The feedback from the event was resoundingly positive. Everyone was excited and engaged to learn more and take back what they learned to their schools.