Safe Internet Alliance

Digital Nation, a PBS documentary that airs February 2 at 9 p.m., begins with a simple observation: Rachel Dretzin, who produced a 2007 PBS documentary called "Growing Up Online" and co-hosts Digital Nation, visits a scene in her own household in which she's cooking dinner for her family. Suddenly, she realizes that her husband and older son are using laptops at the table while her other children play with their iPhones.

"It hit me, we're all in the same house but we're also in other worlds," she says. "It just sort of snuck up on us, I didn't see it coming."

The 90-minute documentary, according to its website, "is an effort to define this new space and to put some walls around it." But it's also an interactive "open source" project, one that involves online media, workshops, and gathering input to improve the Digital Nation experience.

The documentary, which is sponsored by Safe Internet Alliance member Verizon, focuses on both the pitfalls and advantages of this new online world, with stories offering dire warnings about the perils of media multi-tasking -- studying for finals while watching YouTube videos and listening to music, for instance -- and others about the positive results of this new media experience --- for instance, when an inner-city school receives new laptops for all of its students.

Yet, in a subsequent segment, Dretzin takes us to a middle school in the Bronx that, a few years ago, was suffering from frequent fights, gang activity, and only 9 percent of students meeting state standards in math. After a new principal, Jason Levy, provided all students with laptops, violence went way down, attendance went up 90 percent, and scores improved 30 percent in reading and almost 40 percent in math. "There should never be a question as to whether students should have access to technology," said Levy. "It's like oxygen. If anything, we make school make more sense to kids when we provide them with an opportunity to use technology." Students in the school are using Ning and other social-media tools to enhance their studies.

Included at the website is a mosaic of more than 100 video testimonials from visitors that became part of the documentary process. It also includes a 4-minute trailer.

Parents and teachers can dive into workshops while there's a separate domain for classroom activities. The FRONTLINE Teacher Center is also devoted to the workshops.

This series of interactive resources will help parents and teachers to deepen their knowledge of how digital technology is transforming our society and to gain insights into understanding, analyzing and participating in our technology-infused world. The Digital Workshops include activities for adults to learn how to manage their family’s media usage, to become a better caregiver to the “digital natives” in their lives, to assess the impact of technology in education, and to explore the effects of multitasking on our brains and much more.