Common Sense Educators are committed to creating a culture of digital learning and citizenship in their classrooms, schools, and districts. They harness the potential of technology for learning by implementing meaningful learning experiences within a safe and responsible context.
Anyone who is an educator – whether a classroom teacher, tech coach, librarian, homeschool teacher, preservice teacher, parent coordinator, or more – can become a Common Sense Educator.
How to Become Certified
Part I: Join
Create your profile on Common Sense Education.
If you haven't already, sign up as an educator on the Common Sense membership page, and create a profile.
Become a member of the community. Join the Common Sense Educator community on Facebook
When you COMPLETE these 2 tasks, fill out this application.
Part II: LEARN, DO, CONNECT
LEARN
Common Sense Education has many great professional development resources for educators, including webinars, tutorials, Tech Tips & Resources, and in-person trainings.
Select two learning activities: one related to digital citizenship and another to digital teaching. Use the Common Sense Facebook group to explore ideas or get recommendations. Resources can be found on their site for free. And if you're a Premium member, you'll have access to their exclusive e-learning content and can track your own progress.
Digital Citizenship
Digital Teaching
Time commitment: 2 hrs. (estimate)
DO
In this step, you implement ideas from the LEARN step into your work or practice. This could involve teaching students a digital citizenship lesson, applying a digital teaching strategy in your lesson, facilitating a parent education event, designing a tech-rich lesson, creating an implementation plan, or more. Select two activities: one related to digital citizenship and another to digital teaching. The community can serve as a place to get support as you teach lessons or incorporate edtech tools into your instruction.
Digital Citizenship
Digital Teaching
Time commitment: 2 hrs. (estimate; time may vary depending on the nature of what you do!)
CONNECT
Sharing successes (and failures) is an important part of the learning process and an essential part of professional growth. In this final step, please engage with your fellow educators by reflecting on your process of becoming a Common Sense Educator. Post your reflection in the Common Sense Educator Facebook Group. The post can focus on:
For more information on what makes a good reflection, please see our FAQ in the Help Center. If you do not wish to join the FB group, please write your reflection in a Google Doc or Padlet.
Part II:
After completing the LEARN, DO, CONNECT steps submit Part II of your application.
You should hear within four to seven days whether or not your application has been approved.
If approved, you will receive a badge with your congratulatory email.
Please be sure to add [email protected] to your contact list.
Questions?Please read through our FAQ in the Help Center. If you have further questions, please post in the Common Sense Education Community or email [email protected] and enter Recognition in the subject line.
Create your profile on Common Sense Education.
If you haven't already, sign up as an educator on the Common Sense membership page, and create a profile.
Become a member of the community. Join the Common Sense Educator community on Facebook
When you COMPLETE these 2 tasks, fill out this application.
Part II: LEARN, DO, CONNECT
LEARN
Common Sense Education has many great professional development resources for educators, including webinars, tutorials, Tech Tips & Resources, and in-person trainings.
Select two learning activities: one related to digital citizenship and another to digital teaching. Use the Common Sense Facebook group to explore ideas or get recommendations. Resources can be found on their site for free. And if you're a Premium member, you'll have access to their exclusive e-learning content and can track your own progress.
Digital Citizenship
- Complete the digital citizenship training.
- Attend or watch the archive of an edWeb webinar.
- Attend an in-person training by Common Sense staff, PD partner, or Ambassador.
- Complete Premium Membership eLearning (mini-course, webinar, etc.)
Digital Teaching
- Complete a Tech Tips & Resources page.
- Attend or watch the archive of an edWeb webinar.
- Attend an in-person training by Common Sense staff, PD partner, or Ambassador.
- Complete Premium Membership eLearning (mini-course, webinar, etc.)
Time commitment: 2 hrs. (estimate)
DO
In this step, you implement ideas from the LEARN step into your work or practice. This could involve teaching students a digital citizenship lesson, applying a digital teaching strategy in your lesson, facilitating a parent education event, designing a tech-rich lesson, creating an implementation plan, or more. Select two activities: one related to digital citizenship and another to digital teaching. The community can serve as a place to get support as you teach lessons or incorporate edtech tools into your instruction.
Digital Citizenship
- Create one digital citizenship lesson plan (using the Common Sense Education template).
- Teach one lesson from the Digital Citizenship Curriculum.
- Teach/facilitate one module from Digital Passport™.
- Teach/facilitate one storyline from Digital Compass.
- Teach/facilitate one byte from Digital Bytes.
- Create a digital citizenship implementation plan. Ex.: K–12 instruction plan.
- Facilitate a Connecting Families event.
- Create a parent engagement plan.
- Create a digital citizenship professional development plan.
- Facilitate a parent event using the Parent Engagement Toolkit.
Digital Teaching
- Create one tech-rich lesson plan (using our template).
- Teach one tech-rich lesson (from our catalog).
- Facilitate a Connecting Families event.
- Create a digital teaching implementation plan.
- Create a parent engagement plan.
- Create a digital learning professional development plan.
- Facilitate a parent event using the Parent Engagement Toolkit.
Time commitment: 2 hrs. (estimate; time may vary depending on the nature of what you do!)
CONNECT
Sharing successes (and failures) is an important part of the learning process and an essential part of professional growth. In this final step, please engage with your fellow educators by reflecting on your process of becoming a Common Sense Educator. Post your reflection in the Common Sense Educator Facebook Group. The post can focus on:
- Your insights from your LEARN and DO activities
- A resource you created and how you used it in your classroom or school
- A question or questions you would like the FB group to answer and that will help support your practice in the future
For more information on what makes a good reflection, please see our FAQ in the Help Center. If you do not wish to join the FB group, please write your reflection in a Google Doc or Padlet.
Part II:
After completing the LEARN, DO, CONNECT steps submit Part II of your application.
You should hear within four to seven days whether or not your application has been approved.
If approved, you will receive a badge with your congratulatory email.
Please be sure to add [email protected] to your contact list.
Questions?Please read through our FAQ in the Help Center. If you have further questions, please post in the Common Sense Education Community or email [email protected] and enter Recognition in the subject line.