Digiduck: Donald Duck Helps Children with Digital Skills and AI
amsterdam, vrijdag, 19 september 2025.
Today, Microsoft, the Coding School, Wortell, VeiligInternetten.nl, and DPG Media launched the Digiduck, a special Donald Duck edition designed to help 1.5 million Dutch people with digital skills, AI, and online safety. This edition is particularly aimed at children and their parents, who are increasingly exposed to fake news and other digital challenges. Children will learn how to identify fake news, create strong passwords, and understand the role of AI in their lives. This initiative fills an important gap, as digital literacy is not yet a fixed part of primary education.
A Playful Start: Digiduck as an Impulse for Digital Literacy
The Digiduck, a special Donald Duck edition developed by Microsoft, the Coding School, Wortell, VeiligInternetten.nl, and DPG Media, is being distributed to 1.5 million Dutch people and is designed to teach children (and their parents) digital skills, online safety, and basic knowledge about AI in a playful manner [1]. The publication covers concrete topics such as identifying fake news, creating strong passwords, and understanding the role of AI in daily life, and will be distributed through subscriptions, stores, and schools [1][2][4].
Why Focusing on Children and Families is Important
Organisations behind the Digiduck highlight that digital literacy is not yet a fixed subject in primary education, and many children are already active online from an early age, making early education crucial to mitigate risks such as disinformation [2][4]. Schools, parents, and policymakers were involved in the launch, where experts and local policymakers discussed the need for joint actions to strengthen digital skills [1][2].
AI in Modern Education: Three Concrete Applications
AI is used in education and public communication primarily in three areas: (1) personalised information provision — offering relevant content tailored to user profiles; (2) chatbots and virtual assistants for public services — providing 24/7 answers to frequently asked questions and guidance on forms; (3) AI-driven awareness campaigns — dynamic content selection and A/B optimisation to increase effectiveness [GPT][alert! ‘specific examples from the Digiduck case illustrate the intention but not the technical implementation details in the sources’].
Personalised Information Provision: Opportunities and Pitfalls
Personalised education can make information more relevant and understandable for different target groups, for example, by adjusting language level, age, and prior knowledge — an approach that aligns with the goal of Digiduck to make complex topics accessible to children [1][4]. At the same time, personalisation raises privacy concerns: data usage must be transparent and comply with legislation and ethical standards [GPT][alert! ‘the sources describe the purpose and scope of Digiduck, but do not provide technical details about data processing or privacy guarantees’].
Chatbots and Public Service Delivery: Accessibility and Customisation
Chatbots can make public information available 24/7, handle common questions, and refer users to more detailed resources — functions that support the Digiduck approach by providing low-threshold explanations and referrals for parents and teachers [1][4][GPT]. In practice, it must be ensured that chatbots provide reliable answers and that there are clear escalation paths to human assistance for complex or risky situations [GPT][alert! ‘no source in the provided set mentions a specific chatbot project linked to Digiduck’].
AI-Driven Awareness Campaigns: Measuring and Optimising
AI enables real-time analysis of engagement and effectiveness, allowing campaigns to be quickly adapted to what works for different target groups — an advantage for large-scale distributions such as the 1.5 million copies of Digiduck [1][GPT]. Measuring effectiveness requires good indicators (e.g., reading duration, forwarding actions, behavioural changes) and careful design so that metrics do not inadvertently encourage harmful behaviour or systematically disadvantage certain groups [GPT][alert! ‘the sources report distribution and objectives but not the specific measurement methods used for Digiduck’].
Practical Examples and Lessons for Inclusivity
The Digiduck itself serves as a practical example of accessible education: a familiar comic format is used to make complex digital topics more approachable and stimulate conversations at home and in school [1][2][4]. Organisations emphasise that not all children have the same starting point in terms of digital knowledge, and materials must therefore be recognisable, fun, and educational to achieve broad impact [1][2].
Privacy, Reliability, and the Role of Transparency
Strict requirements apply to privacy and transparency in AI applications for education: users (and parents) must know what data is collected and how it is used, and systems must be designed so that they do not reinforce inaccuracies or biases [GPT][alert! ‘sources discuss the importance of digital literacy and awareness but do not provide technical privacy statements for the Digiduck initiatives’].
Accessibility of Complex Information Thanks to AI
AI tools can automatically simplify texts, create audio versions, or generate visual explanations, which helps make complex digital concepts understandable for children and parents with different levels of prior knowledge — an application that aligns with the goal of Digiduck to present topics such as fake news and AI in an understandable way [1][4][GPT]. This requires attention to language level, cultural sensitivity, and testing by educational experts to keep the content pedagogically sound [GPT][alert! ‘the sources mention collaboration with educational experts but do not provide detailed evaluation results of accessibility measures’].
What Digiduck Teaches About Partnership Collaboration
The Digiduck launch was organised in collaboration between major tech and media partners and educational initiatives, demonstrating how public and private players can work together to combine broad reach with pedagogical quality [1][2][4]. During the launch, experts and policymakers held discussions on shared responsibility to strengthen digital skills, a dialogue that remains necessary as long as digital literacy is not structurally included in all curricula [1][2].
Practical Tips for Schools and Parents
Use recognisable tools like the Digiduck to start conversations about online safety and AI at home or in the classroom; combine playful materials with guided lessons and test the effectiveness with simple indicators (such as reading and discussion activity) to determine what works for your own target group [1][2][4][GPT][alert! ‘specific local implementation advice depends on available resources and was not technically detailed in the provided sources’].