Questions from #UTedChat on October 28th - #DigCit Doesn't Have to be Scary

I have long been a fan of Twitter chats and most especially #UTedChat which happens every Wednesday @ 9pm Mountain Time during the school year and occasionally during the summer as well. While I haven't been as active a participant with my #UTedChat crew, I was lucky enough to moderate on Wednesday, October 28th on the topic of #DigCit Doesn't Have to be Scary. Now, I chose this topic for many reasons, but a couple included the fact that the chat happened right in the middle of Media Literacy Week and the week before was Digital Citizenship Week, so it made perfect sense to play into those ideas. There is another large reason I chose this particular topic because I have always felt very strongly about its importance for students (and adults) to better understand and practice. And as this year has been so wild and crazy, I felt it was a great topic since so many schools around the state of Utah, the USA, and even the world over was relying so much more on technology it just made sense. 

I am always amazed by the responses that come from the #UTedChat participants and this week's chat was even better. I walked away from the chat feeling that I had been through a multi-hour clinic on the importance of Digital Citizenship as well as gathering some excellent firsthand tips for better integrating it into my lessons and daily teaching life. You can read through the full Wakelet archive, thanks to Jared Covili (@Covili) for putting it together. But I wanted to include the full list of questions I used in the hope they can inspire you to take a few minutes to think about how you can more fully integrate Digital Citizenship ideas into your teaching life. 

I also wanted to include the full list of questions here so I could link to it for Episode 167 of the House of #EdTech podcast. I have been the substitute host for the show since Episode 164 when the host, creator, and friend, Chris Nesi needed to step away in an effort to help find some balance in his life with all of the new constrains the COVID-19 pandemic has placed upon the world and his family in particular. You can learn more about that specifically by watching his scope from the #PassTheScopeEDU event on Thursday, October 15th. While I haven't posted anything about this incredible opportunity here on the site yet (let's be honest, I haven't posted ANYTHING for a LONG TIME) I do plan to write up a bit more shortly. 

Enough of the backstory, on to the questions from the chat!

Rape Culture - #100DayProject - Day 070

I haven't been able to watch the news lately due to traveling, but I watched some tonight. I was shocked to see news about the Sanford athlete rape case and the near-worthless conviction Brock Turner received! It makes me incredibly upset that this sort of thing could happen and the guilty receive such a minuscule sentence making it appear that the crime was not as terrible as we all know it to be.

Image Source: Pixabay.com

I'm suddenly asking myself, what is happening with our society? Why are we seeing such grotesque treatment of one another? And then it hits me, we as a society are living in a rape culture where people, both men and women, are no longer respecting one another. They are seeing each other as nothing more than a physical object to their own sexual desires. But there's more. My friend Brittany Plothow started a non-profit called We Are One In Three (WAOiT) to:

... create a safe and shame-free community for survivors of sexual assault of all genders while also educating the public on rape culture, its dangers, and how to combat these issues in communities. WAOiT offers free educational presentations to the public and believes in treating the source of sexual assault and not its symptoms.

Brittany is trying to help make a change in the world so we can end Rape Culture and help make it safe for everyone. I am so impressed by what she is doing with WAOiT I wanted to share her work with you all. She wrote a piece defining the term Rape Culture in more detail and how we can put an end to it. While it's not easy, Brittany suggests a couple of key steps to start changing the culture:

So, what do we do about rape culture? Education is the first step. Once we know what rape culture is we can start to recognize it in our everyday lives. We can then choose which media to participate in and where to give our time and money.

So why am I writing about Rape Culture on an educational site? Because as educators we all have a role to play here. The more familiar we are with the concept of Rape Culture, the more aware we can be in our schools to make sure we aren't adding to the problem as well as helping our students to see the negative effects of its dangerous ways.

One way we can help end the Rape Culture that exists is through more Digital Citizenship training for both students and adults in schools. I recently came across a link to a video that deals with men reading terrible tweets to female sportswriters in eye-opening PSA that really made me uncomfortable the first time I watched it. Please take a minute to watch the video below, but be aware, it contains some harsh language, although partially edited, that may be unsuitable for students. I do think you should watch it because it's incredibly important we see how awful some people act when they have a bit of anonymity online.

Did you see how uncomfortable the poor men selected to read these awful tweets to the female sportswriters? I can't even imagine writing those things down let alone tweeting them out to someone. And this sort of thing happens all the time with students. Maybe not so harsh or violent, but unfortunately, it's sometimes much worse. We need to help our young people realize words hurt and sometimes lead to death. Please take the time to help educate young people on the negative aspects of Rape Culture and how it can start very young and somewhat simple.