The digital environment is part of students’ lives long before they fully understand all the risks involved. Social networks, online games, videos, messaging apps, and educational platforms offer opportunities for learning and social interaction, but they also expose children and adolescents to challenges such as excessive screen time, cyberbullying, stranger contact, online scams, image exposure, and password sharing.

In this landscape, simply restricting device usage is not enough. Students need to learn how to make informed choices, recognize risk scenarios, respect others, and ask for help when something feels unsafe.

Brazil’s Digital ECA (Child and Adolescent Statute) has expanded the conversation surrounding the protection of children and adolescents in their use of digital products and services. For schools, this movement reinforces a role that is both educational and preventive: cultivating students who can participate in the digital world with greater awareness, autonomy, and responsibility.

At this point, digital awareness ceases to be an isolated conversation and becomes an integral part of the pedagogical experience.

What the Digital ECA Represents for Schools

Law No. 15,211/2025, known as the Digital ECA, establishes rules for technology products and services targeted at children and adolescents, or likely to be accessed by this audience. The law addresses key topics such as risk prevention, data protection, parental supervision, advertising, electronic gaming, and protective mechanisms.

The applicable legal obligations depend on the specific role each organization plays. A school does not automatically carry the same responsibilities as a social network, a gaming company, or a digital platform. Nevertheless, educational institutions hold a vital position within the child protection network because they guide students, select educational technologies, engage with families, and address situations that span across online and in-person environments.

Therefore, preparing the school community should not be viewed merely as complying with a requirement. It is a way to foster digital citizenship and establish references so students know how to act responsibly.

The Connection Between the Digital ECA and the Digital BNCC

The phrase “Digital BNCC” is commonly used to group core competencies linked to the critical, ethical, and responsible use of technology. In official documents, the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) primarily uses the designations BNCC Computação and Digital and Media Education.

BNCC Computação organizes competencies and skills into three core axes: computational thinking, digital world, and digital culture. National guidelines for digital and media education also place digital citizenship as a structural dimension, encompassing topics such as online safety, data usage, civic participation, digital inequality, and online violence.

TothBe’s solution aligns with this Digital BNCC framework by supporting skills related to digital culture, online safety, critical thinking, ethics, and respectful interaction. Educational content can be seamlessly incorporated into school practices and combined with teacher-led discussions and classroom activities.

In this way, students do not merely receive information—they connect the topic to real scenarios from their daily lives.

Why Digital Awareness Must Start with the Students

Policies, access filters, and security configurations are essential, but they cannot accompany children or adolescents through every single decision. In many moments, students themselves will need to evaluate a message, an invitation, an image, a password request, or an interaction in an online game.

Building awareness through our content and classroom activities develops critical criteria for these choices. It helps students understand that:

• online pranks can hurt others and carry real-world consequences;

• passwords should never be shared, even with close friends;

• not every online profile belongs to the person it claims to represent;

• published images and information can circulate far beyond the intended audience;

• digital games require boundaries, attention to in-game purchases, and caution during interactions;

• asking a trusted adult for help is a act of self-protection, not a sign of weakness;

• respect, empathy, and responsibility apply online just as they do offline.

When these lessons are presented using age-appropriate language, guidance ceases to be abstract and gains immediate practical utility.

Interactive Mini-Videos Categorized by Grade Level

A single message does not resonate the same way across all age groups. Lower elementary students, upper elementary students, and high school teenagers experience different digital scenarios, possess varying degrees of autonomy, and interpret risks with different levels of complexity.

For this reason, TothBe’s interactive mini-videos are structured specifically by grade level. The language, real-world examples, questions, and pedagogical approach consider each developmental stage and student context.

Digital ECA in Lower Elementary School (Early Years)

In early elementary years, content focuses on foundational concepts through simple, recognizable scenarios. Topics include password safety, screen time balance, respectful interactions, asking for help, and caution when interacting with strangers.

The goal is to build protective references without resorting to fear or overly technical explanations.

Digital ECA in Upper Elementary School (Final Years)

In upper elementary years, students typically gain greater autonomy in using smartphones, social media, online gaming, and group chats. Content dives deeper into cyberbullying, image exposure, privacy, digital reputation, peer pressure, and responsibility for shared content.

Classroom activities encourage students to observe consequences, evaluate alternatives, and understand how their choices impact others.

Digital ECA in High School

In High School, the approach incorporates more complex digital dilemmas, such as online scams, misinformation, consent, ethical use of images, artificial intelligence, digital identity, and how online choices affect academic, social, and professional paths.

The focus is on empowering autonomy with accountability, encouraging critical thinking, and promoting conscious participation in digital culture.

Digital Safety Topics for the Classroom

TothBe’s structured portfolio allows schools to design an ongoing digital awareness journey throughout the academic year, rather than compressing all guidance into a single lecture.

Available topics include:

• Screen Time and Digital Balance: Helps students reflect on daily habits, attention spans, sleep hygiene, studies, relationships, and rest. The goal is not to vilify technology, but to foster healthier, balanced choices.

• Cyberbullying and Online Coexistence: Teaches students to recognize online aggression, humiliation, exclusion, and harmful content sharing. It also explores the role of bystanders, reporting channels, and the importance of avoiding amplifying victim exposure.

• Online Gaming Safety: Addresses interactions with strangers, in-game purchases, privacy settings, respectful gaming language, time limits, and caution with links, invites, and promises of free items.

• Account and Password Protection: Guides students in building secure digital habits, avoiding credential sharing, recognizing unauthorized access attempts, and seeking help if an account is compromised.

• Respect and Accountability: Reminds students that the digital environment does not suspend rules of conduct. Content reinforces empathy, consent, image protection, sharing responsibility, and online consequences.

• Privacy, Exposure, and Safety: Covers personal data, privacy settings, fake profiles, suspicious contacts, photo/video exposure, fake news, critical thinking, and conscious social media usage.

Topics can be selected and arranged according to the school’s reality, student age groups, and pedagogical priorities.

How to Teach Digital Safety in the Classroom

TothBe’s mini-videos are interactive and designed to serve as launching pads for teacher-guided classroom activities. Instead of consuming an entire class period with lecture-based presentations, schools can use short videos to introduce a scenario, prompt a decision, and open space for reflection.

A simple 4-step classroom sequence includes:

1. Prior Knowledge Activation: Before playing the video, the teacher asks a question linked to student experiences (e.g., “What would you do if a classmate asked for your password to help you level up in a game?”).

2. Interactive Mini-Video Screening: The video introduces the topic using age-appropriate language, inviting students to observe scenarios, consequences, and choices.

3. Group Dynamics & Discussion: After the video, the class analyzes a case study, maps out potential responses, establishes community agreements, identifies risk signals, or creates guidance materials for peers.

4. Daily Application: The lesson concludes with a concrete action—reviewing a device setting, learning about the school’s support channels, practicing how to safely ask for help, or committing to a digital behavior agreement.

This blend encourages active participation and dialogue, enabling educators to uncover doubts, misconceptions, and experiences that rarely surface during traditional lectures.

Examples of Classroom Dynamics Schools Can Implement

• Passwords: Students compare fictional account examples to identify habits that leave accounts vulnerable, without needing to reveal their own credentials.

• Cyberbullying: Groups analyze different roles in an online thread (the publisher, recipient, sharer, and bystander), discussing how to stop the spread and seek help.

• Digital Gaming: Teachers present a simulated invitation offering free items, asking students to spot red flags and draft a safety checklist before clicking, buying, or chatting.

• Screen Time: Students map out digital vs. non-digital activities across a typical day, discussing balanced choices without individual judgment.

The most important element is that dynamics remain age-appropriate, connected to the core content, and end with clear guidance.

How Educators and Families Protect Students Online

Putting students at the center does not mean excluding teachers and guardians from the strategy. Children and adolescents need to know which adults they can turn to and how the school will respond to a report.

Educators should understand key digital safety concepts, their scope of action, and referral channels. Families can receive guidance on topics covered in class to continue the conversation at home using the same language of protection and respect.

This alignment prevents contradictory messaging and strengthens the support network: the school teaches, the student practices, and adults provide references for situations requiring help.

How to Build a Digital Awareness Program for Students

Schools can begin with a priority diagnostic and build a schedule aligned with their academic calendar. A recommended implementation path includes:

1. Defining target audiences and grade levels;

2. Selecting the most relevant topics for each educational stage;

3. Integrating mini-videos into class schedules and school projects;

4. Preparing educators to facilitate classroom dynamics;

5. Communicating initiatives to families;

6. Logging completed actions and student reach;

7. Evaluating understanding and planning subsequent modules.

Continuity is key. As digital risks, tools, and habits evolve, learning programs must adapt accordingly.

Digital Awareness in the Daily School Routine

The Digital ECA increases focus on protecting children and adolescents, but real change occurs when students understand how their daily choices connect to safety, respect, and citizenship.

By deploying age-appropriate content and combining it with interactive classroom dynamics, schools turn a complex topic into actionable learning. Students stop being passive recipients of rules and become active participants in building a safer digital environment.

Bring Digital Awareness to Your School

TothBe’s interactive mini-videos transform important safety topics into engaging stories tailored to each grade level. Within an interactive educational experience, students reflect, participate, and learn to apply digital safety and citizenship in their daily lives.

Want to prepare your students to make safer choices in the digital world?

Explore TothBe’s Digital ECA Solution and request a presentation today.

Contact our team: contato@tothbe.com.br