In our increasingly interconnected, technology-steeped society, the development of educated, active world citizens through global citizenship education is an essential component of quality education and lifelong learning that transcends time, place, and space. Global digital citizenship education opportunities deployed at scale for learners from diverse backgrounds, countries, and communities benefit and advance society, organizations, and individuals. This environment helps to prepare adaptive workers and citizens who competitively meet evolving workforce demands. To accomplish the scaling of digital citizenship education, educational policymakers, leaders, educators, and researchers are increasingly focusing on overcoming challenges and developing best practices leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in education. Their main objective is to expand the scope of reach to learners across countries and contexts, thereby promoting sustainable development and increasing educational equity.
Under the above background, UNESCO IITE and Shanghai Open University with the support of experts from the Online Learning Consortium produced this publication within the joint project “Promoting ICT Capacity Building and Open Education in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies”. This analytical review and its corresponding study examine perspectives, insights, and best practices for digital literacy and digital citizenship education. It reveals a gap in current instructional frameworks, chiefly a lack of lifelong learning focus, and highlights through case studies efforts around the globe to extend and cede continuous learning principles when implemented intentionally and strategically. These efforts address macro, meso, and micro-level challenges, through intentional, iterative design and implementation practices with the focus on AI, to address its key areas and roles within digital citizenship education. Finally, this report identifies further research areas to develop a hybrid educational model that determines an advanced novel framework, learning outcomes, set of best practices, and assessment strategies to advance global digital citizenship education across the world.