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# 5-2 Practicing Digital Citizenship Education in Taiwan – g0v Sch001
## 5-2-1 Fostering the Next-Generation Digital Citizens through g0v
> Author: Tiff Lin / CC BY-SA
“Why did I study in high school for three years without knowing any of these resources?” This was the first thought that came to Tsai Hsiu-Chi, a senior high student from Pingtung, when he started studying at a university in the city. In response, he and his younger schoolmates created the 108 Curriculum Resource Integration Platform for Senior High School Students, where graduates share their learning portfolios and resources with younger students. This platform ensures that students in his hometown no longer suffer from a lack of information.
“After the university entrance exam, the stack of books in my room was almost twice my height, and many were mistakes!” Astrid Yen and Mavis Mao, two high school seniors from Kaohsiung, realized that judging the quality of reference books was difficult due to their inconsistent standards. Thus, they created the Study Guides Recommendation Platform, inviting previous students to review and rate the books to help younger students avoid unnecessary purchases.
“Why is it so hard to find open course resources in one place?” This question came to mind for Hao-Tian Ted Lu, an eighth grader from New Taipei City, who struggled to find suitable open courses for self-study during the COVID-19 pandemic. He proposed an idea to the g0v community, working online with civic hackers from various fields to launch Course API, an open course information hub. Course API gathers and categorizes open courses from multiple websites, making it easier for learners to find the courses they need.
“In rural areas, kids often indulge themselves in TikTok after school, with little thought about their future,” observed Cheng Yu-Chen and Lan Ru-Yu, two sophomore senior high school students from Taichung who volunteer in remote towns. Hoping to inspire children to think more about their future, Cheng and Lan created the “Carry Your Career” Project. This career resource platform collects and categorizes easy, fun career introduction videos and articles. They also made simple quizzes to encourage kids to explore their career potential on the platform.
These are some of the recent stories from g0v Sch001. Over the past four years, g0v Sch001 has received 80 project proposals from junior and senior high school and university students across different regions and disciplines. These students share one thing in common: they not only have the ability to identify and analyze problems but also possess four essential digital citizenship characteristics: problem-solving, human-computer collaboration, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public participation.
However, how do we help more young people turn an initial idea into real action, and how do we become bridge-builders in their journey?
g0v Sch001’s answer is: Beyond raising awareness, creating a supportive network that nurtures action will encourage these young changemakers to move forward further and even enable them to create opportunities to reshape society.
g0v Sch001 is rooted in g0v, Taiwan’s most significant civic tech community. Over the past 12 years, g0v has gathered nearly 14,000 citizens from all walks of life. Actively embodying the principles of open source, activism, and civic spirit, g0v has launched over 1,000 initiatives that leverage technology to address social issues collaboratively. Notable initiatives include the Mask Map, Moedict, and Cofacts (a fact-checking chatbot for misinformation). g0v has also helped the government promote an open culture in Taiwan, such as open data, open government, and open parliament.
> 200+ projects in the g0v community / Image from g0v School
If g0v hackers represent the ideal image of digital citizens, why not build digital citizenship teaching models and resources with them? That’s what drives a group of contributors to establish g0v Sch001. Born in 2020, g0v Sch001 invites participants of the g0v community to transform their rich experiences into learning models and resources based on the spirit of “learning from the community, learning with the community” and project-based learning (PBL) and introduce these to educational settings. Students can learn the essential knowledge and guiding principles, such as initiating and collaborating on projects, familiarizing themselves with digital strategies and tools, and identifying technology trends through g0v Sch001’s online digital citizenship courses, camps, workshops, and courses co-developed with schools. In the next phase, students can participate in the g0v community, walking into the real world to gain a deeper understanding of various social issues and expand their network across all fields. During these two phases, students may join existing projects or initiate their own, participate in project incubation competitions, and apply what they’ve learned to hands-on experience. Ultimately, long-term participants are invited to share their experiences, becoming trainers or speakers for digital citizenship courses as such or ambassadors for new community participants.
> Learning roadmap in g0v School / Image from g0v School
The next question we asked ourselves was, how can educators foster digital citizenship skills for guiding projects and apply them in educational settings?
Actively leveraging external resources or initiating a project on their own are both excellent approaches. In recent years, PBL has gained popularity in education, with many teachers and community organizations eager to share experiences and provide resources. For those looking to incorporate problem-solving, human-computer collaboration, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement into PBL, g0v Sch001 offers open courses and teacher training in digital citizenship literacy. These can be used independently or as tools for guiding students. Educators can also partner with g0v Sch001 to co-create in-school courses or even initiate their plans. After going through an entire project cycle, they can design project-based lessons for students.
Liu Shu-Ian, a civics teacher at Taichung Municipal Girls’ Senior High School, noted that she was encouraged by the support from the civic tech community to offer the Digital Citizenship Course as part of the Inquiry and Practice Program and the Diversity Selective Courses in her school. The course aims to help students overcome their fear of digital tools, broaden their perspectives, and foster reciprocal learning. Lin encourages fellow teachers to work more with external organizations to complement their work and create new possibilities.
Han Chungueo, a National Chutung Senior High School biology teacher, leads by example with the Road-safety for Everyone Project. Disturbed by poor pedestrian conditions, Han launched a crowdsourced mapping initiative that invites citizens across Taiwan to upload photos of pedestrian walks and collaborated with relevant agencies. She also uses this project as a model for an in-school “problem-solving course” while refining the curriculum through her own hands-on project experience.
As a famous g0v saying goes, “Don’t ask why no one is doing this. Admit that you are the one ‘not’ doing it!” Everyone is “no one,” and everyone has the power to change society. As many grassroots organizations are already building teaching models and resources on digital citizenship, we want to say that you’re not alone; let’s move forward together. We can nurture digital citizenship literacy in educational settings by fostering “self-directed learning, collaborative learning, interdisciplinary learning, and action” in projects. Let’s cultivate digital citizens who take initiative, work together, and change society through action.
> Read more stories about g0v sch001’s award-winning projects: https://g0v.hackmd.io/@jothon/sch001report/https%3A%2F%2Fg0v.hackmd.io%2F%40jothon%2Fsch001report
## 5-2-2 Turning Civic Tech Community Experience into Teaching Resources and Models
As civic tech communities and community projects mature, the collective intelligence accumulated through civic tech experience and technologies, such as project collaboration principles and frameworks, civic tech project experience and techniques, open-source and technology trends, and civic tech career development. What we can do is not only document these experiences and the progress of the civic tech community but also consider how they can be transformed into learning resources and models. These can serve as the first stepping stone for new participants of civic tech, enabling them to engage in communities and projects smoothly and even design a clear structure for their projects.
Moreover, we should also invite long-term community participants to transform their experiences into courses, for this not only helps increase the visibility of projects but also allows project initiators to clarify problems and solutions from a different perspective by teaching others. This transformation of experience into accessible learning resources benefits both the projects and the participants. Additionally, many courses also enhance the skills of long-term community participants, such as helping them to explore how to apply technological trends to existing projects. These courses can be further introduced to educational institutions, serving as self-directed learning resources or collaborative curricula for more users. This approach supports the grassroots development of digital citizenship, allowing participants of lower age to participate, and fosters the creation of intergenerational learning communities.
> The approach of g0v School transform civic tech communities into teaching models and resources / Image from g0v School
Taking the Sch001 project launched by the g0v community in 2020 as an example, the project turns the spirit and experience of the civic tech community into learning models and resources for digital citizenship education. Specifically, Sch001 transforms the g0v community experiences into two learning models: community-based learning and project-based learning. Both learning models encompass four essential learning elements: self-directed learning, collaborative learning, interdisciplinary learning, and action by digital means or in the digital sphere. g0v Sch001’s target audience includes junior and senior high school and university students, new participants in youth communities, and educators. g0v Sch001 nurtures digital citizens through the following four steps:
### Step 1: Transformation of Community Experience and Course Development
Each year, g0v Sch001 invites the g0v community participants and civic tech-related organizations to serve as instructors, transforming the experiences of civic tech practitioners into digital citizenship courses, and organizing them into online open course videos. The course content includes project collaboration principles and structures, project experiences and technologies, open-source, technology trends (AI, Web3), career development, and sharing hands-on digital citizenship education experiences. These courses are released during the annual Summer Camp and remain available as open online courses after the camp. Additionally, to support project development, long-term g0v participants are specially invited to serve as “g0v Sch001 Senpai” to advise project teams on project definition, use of digital tools, and resource incorporation in partnered school courses or project incubation competitions.
To assist community participants in transforming their experiences into courses, g0v Sch001 offers instructional design workshops and course design templates with professional educators to guide them. Moreover, when physical courses or lectures are offered, the contents are recorded and edited into online courses to enhance reusability and impact and improve the quality and quantity of online courses.
> The content of digital citizenship open courses / Image from g0v Sch001
### Step 2: Collaboration and Implementation of Digital Citizenship Courses
The collaboration and implementation of digital citizenship courses have been established in the following approaches:
#### A. Collaborating with schools to offer digital citizenship project courses
Each year, g0v Sch001 works with different senior high schools and universities, inviting community participants to offer courses on g0v project collaboration principles and practices, civic tech project experience, and digital tools to cultivate students’ ability to execute digital projects. g0v Sch001 co-develops the curriculum with teachers according to the needs of each school. The course has five stages: Beginner Village, Themed Courses, Proposal Guidance and Practice, Project Consultation by Experienced g0v Participants, and Project Presentations. The syllabus, course presentations, class observation records, and outcomes students achieve from the courses are available as open-source references for the public.
#### B. Training activities for teachers
g0v Sch001 will organize training workshops for teachers that focus on teaching methods or topics currently of interest to teachers. These workshops will integrate g0v Sch001’s project-based guidance methods and resources, such as inquiry and hands-on learning, PBL (project/problem-based learning), and geographic data and information systems. Additionally, the workshops, incorporated with g0v hackathons, allow teachers to develop their skills in guiding students to carry out projects and gain a deeper understanding of civic tech. The teachers will have opportunities to network with project leaders from various fields, thereby enhancing their teaching resources.
#### C. Organizing camps, workshops, and lectures
g0v Sch001 hosts an in-person and online Summer Empowerment Camp annually. Based on the aforementioned online courses on digital citizenship, learners are invited to engage in self-directed online collaborative learning, with assignments and thought-provoking questions designed to enhance learning outcomes. Project implementation workshops are also held at the camp, primarily in-person, for learners interested in doing projects. These workshops are also combined with community activities held in students’ summer vacations for learners to enjoy face-to-face interactions and know the g0v community more. Additionally, to keep up with technological trends and current events, various digital citizenship lectures are held from time to time, such as the AI & Humanities Book Club: Personal Creation in the Age of Machine Intelligence.
> g0v Sch001 works with Taichung Municipal Girls’ Senior High School to offer a project implementation course on digital citizenship / Photo from g0v Sch001
### Step 3: Cross-Sector Collaboration for Enhancing Digital Citizenship
After participating in the digital citizenship courses, some learners continue to engage with the g0v community by initiating or joining projects. The well-established online collaboration platforms within the g0v community (such as online communication tools and collaborative documentation) and regular hackathons provide opportunities for learners to interact with the broader community. g0v Sch001 also actively fosters connections with domestic and international civic tech communities. For instance, it organizes events with the Students’ Information Technology Conference (SITCON). It also partners with Code for Japan, enabling students from both organizations’ project incubation competitions to share their projects. Moreover, efforts are underway to secure funding for civic tech students from Taiwan, Japan, and Korea participating in the “Facing the Ocean” international hackathon. In addition to providing learners with diverse educational resources, g0v Sch001 promotes awareness and dialogue on digital citizenship among civic tech practitioners, educators, and the public. Past initiatives include hosting discussions on digital citizenship in Taiwan, Japan, and Germany and organizing World Café events where civic tech organizations from other countries shared their experiences and provided insights on digital citizenship. (Highlights of the discussions and events can be found in Chapters 5-3, 5-4, and 5-5.)
> Code for Japan led the CfJ Civictech Challenge Cup U-22 finalist teams to Taiwan to share their experiences during the final event of g0v Sch001’s 4th Project Incubation Competition / Photo from g0v Sch001
### Step 4: Project Mentorship and Presentation of Results
After the digital citizenship course, g0v Sch001 hosts the Project Incubation Competition to provide motivated participants with additional platforms and support. Throughout the process, participants are guided to focus on their project issues and assisted in presenting their demo results. The support includes guided project templates, community feedback mechanisms, professional feedback from judges, consultations with senior g0v participants, project refinement workshops, and grants.
> Workflow of g0v Sch001’s Project Incubation Competition / Image from g0v Sch001
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> The 3rd annual Sch001 Project Incubator Competition, photo by g0v Sch001
## 5-2-3 Digital Citizenship Education Resource List
In this section, we list the resources that you can use to implement digital citizenship education.
### Digital Solution Strategies and Tools Recommendation List
The list reviews strategies for digital solutions utilized by the g0v community over the years, which helps users find proper strategies, digital tools, and referenceable civic tech projects for different scenarios. The link to the list is as follows:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P1sCLPAQP9hUwMFVGzneg9lAIFLoYe_arsmgdUy23FA/edit#gid=0
### Resource Mapping and Application Chart for Project Stages
This chart will help you to divide project processes into five stages: problem awareness and exploration, solution ideation and implementation, team communication and collaboration, project planning and execution, and outcome presentation and post-project extension. It provides relevant the g0v community resources applicable to each stage, helping new community participants or educators to integrate g0v civic tech resources into project-based courses. The link to the chart is as follows:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oDhVtP1QY1GhPCuG5ANcAiY1bms5m2bgqAlIuZGTjfM/edit#heading=h.c9cjamutzh83
### Collaborative Projects on Digital Citizenship Education Courses with Schools and Past Teaching Plans
This document records eight courses jointly developed by g0v Sch001 with seven senior high schools and universities, including course outlines, content and presentations, student learning outcomes, and class observation notes. This serves as a reference for educators interested in offering digital project-based courses. You can access the Course and Plan by the link below:
> https://g0v.hackmd.io/@jothon/sch001pr0jectcourseplan
### Online Digital Citizenship Courses
The courses invite long-term g0v community participants, project initiators, and civic tech practitioners to transform their experiences, skills, and insights of project development into free online courses. The program features over 70 lessons, including:
> Digital citizenship open courses list / Image from g0v Sch001
#### ✓ Civic Tech
- Various social issues and their digital solutions
- Technical and application tutorials: programming, geographic information system (GIS) applications, and open data search and utilization
- Introduction to digital tools and tutorials
- Project insights: project concepts, collaboration principles, and more
- Career development: learning journeys and experiences in career development shared by students in civic tech communities
#### ✓ Technology Trends
- AI: its concepts, trends, applications, and impacts
- Web3: its concepts and exertion of social impact
- Open source: its concepts and applications in open culture, open data, and open government
> You can see the courses by clicking: https://g0v.hackmd.io/@jothon/Sch001courses/https%3A%2F%2Fg0v.hackmd.io%2F%40jothon%2FB1NIQnmXs
