Partner with educators, leaders, students and families to foster a culture of respectful online interactions and a healthy balance in their use of technology.
In the May 2021 post Can a hybrid approach to teaching and learning organically foster digital citizenship?, educators are invited to think about how technology integration and the structure of their courses can help foster digital citizenship. There is something unique to hybridity that develops student thinking towards digital citizenship. Hybridity within education is the acknowledgement, and indeed the value of, otherness and difference, and it develops a learners’ ability to exist in in-between spaces in a globalized world.
In the October 2020 post Digital Wisdom & Circumnavigating the Algorithm, I encourage all internet users to think critically about their own digital literacy and the ways in which their interactions with the internet and its users impact their thoughts and behaviors. It’s important to be aware of the risk of echo chambers, and best practices for online content consumption should include the habitual use of multiple news sources, interacting with people of different perspectives (both on- and offline), and carefully considering one’s own biases.
Additionally, in the November, 2020 post Student Flourishing in the Virtual Classroom, some best practices for online teaching and learning are highlighted. Virtual classrooms are spaces where students should be able to learn to collaborate with one another and interact frequently using virtual mediums in order to establish a social presence and build community. When students can learn to foster a culture of respectful online interactions in the classroom environment, they’re far more likely to carry those behaviors over into their personal internet use.
