Silence no longer an option

Silence no longer an option
Digitally Lit #261 – 9/26/2020

Welcome back to Digitally Literate.

We’re making changes here at DL. First off, I reopened the blog feed for the site. That means that you can just scroll down from the homepage and see all of the issues.

Second, I’m building up an open, online course as part of DL. I’ll have more info coming soon, but here’s a sneak peek of the first wave of learning events. This is for the educator in Pre-K up through higher ed that wants to be digitally literate in terms of teaching, learning, & assessment. Enjoy. 🙂

This week I worked on the following:

On Living Well – What does living well look like for you? What are you living for?
Our Experience with COVID-19 Tests – I document our experiences with coronavirus testing over the last couple of months.
Are You on Offense or Defense? – A post about your level of control as you determine what your goals are and how will your spend your time to achieve them.
Stop Waiting for “What’s Next” – Stop waiting for some day…and think about today.
Pause & Reboot – Take time to stop and reboot your brain so you can start fresh each day.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe if you would like this newsletter to show up in your inbox. Feel free to reach out and let me know what you think of this work at hello@digitallyliterate.net.

Watch

How students of color confront impostor syndrome

Dena Simmons discusses how we might create a classroom that makes all students feel proud of who they are. “Every child deserves an education that guarantees the safety to learn in the comfort of one’s own skin,” she says.

For more guidance on imposter syndrome, check out this post from TED-Ed.

Read

We Need to Talk About Talking About QAnon

For those of you that do not spend their time deep in the online wormhole of conspiracy and misinformation threads, you may not know about QAnon. QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them, leading to a “day of reckoning” involving the mass arrest of journalists and politicians.

Whitney Phillips on how we need to talk about how a person’s existing worldview feeds into & is fed by recommendation algorithms. This is how the attention economy has has become possible, profitable & untouchable.

QAnon seems to be rebranding as they get more attention.

Telling the Truth About Slavery Is Not ‘Indoctrination’

Clint Smith on how our country is made better, not worse, by young people reckoning with the full legacy of the institution.

Such reckoning better prepares them to make sense of how our country has come to be, and how to build systems and institutions predicated on justice rather than oppression. Nothing is more patriotic than that.

Whose Anger Counts?

Whitney Phillips on how cancel culture can go wrong. But that doesn’t mean the objections of far-right trolls and social justice activists should be mistaken for having equal worth.

If you truly want to do something about cancel culture, take the radical step of doing what you do for everyone else. See them.

Raising Good Gamers: Envisioning an Agenda for Diversity, Inclusion, and Fair Play

In February 2020, leading researchers, game developers, educators, policymakers, youth experts, and others convened for an in-depth exploration of the forces shaping the culture and climate of online game communities and the impact of antisocial and toxic interactions on players ages 8-13.

This report from the Connected Learning Alliance synthesizes outputs and recommendations focused on the following prompts:

How might we develop and support gaming communities that cultivate empathetic, compassionate, and civically engaged youth?
What might it look like to develop youth’s socio-emotional capacities to positively shape the climate of gaming clubs and communities?
What role can the design of games, gaming communities, and associated technologies play in mitigating abuse?
How do we build the foundations of a healthy community directly into the platforms and communities themselves?

Teach Writing with the New English Language Arts Pack

Check out the new English Language Arts Minecraft Pack created in partnership with the National Writing Project. These 10 lessons for Minecraft: Education Edition focus on world-building and engage students in a game-based learning experience that will help them learn about the writing process.

This post from Christina Cantrill details the project, and how to get students to express their creativity through these worlds.

To learn more, check out the National Writing Project podcast episode featuring Joe Dillon.

If you’re new to Minecraft: Education Edition, head to education.minecraft.net/get-started.