Digital technology and social media are rapidly changing how citizens consume, create, and share information. Many learners spend significant time each day online, yet they have never received training on how to engage meaningfully with the information they encounter. This report, coauthored by OET and WestEd, is aimed at agencies interested in supporting edtech or digital literacy accelerators, as well as education leaders interested in supporting strategies to address misinformation.

To support the development of these tools, OET—with help from WestEd—established the Digital Literacy Accelerator (DLA), a project that ran from August 2021 to April 2022. The DLA recruited teams of instructional designers and edtech developers to create and pilot edtech innovations focused on digital literacy. Specifically, the DLA was established to surface innovative edtech ideas and strategies to support middle school, high school, and postsecondary learners in (a) evaluating and combating misinformation and (b) promoting civil discourse in digital spaces.