DL 303

Ecological Harmonization of Humans With Everything Non-Human

Published: September 11, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome back, friends! Here's Digitally Literate, issue 303. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

This week was wild and bumpy, but I'm glad to reconnect and share insights.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Universal Design for Learning: UDL framework provides accessible and engaging teaching strategies for diverse learners
Vaccination Demographics: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy correlates with age, education, and political affiliation patterns
Brazil's Social Media Experiment: World's first laws making content takedowns illegal could increase online toxicity globally
Academic Harassment Crisis: Universities urgently need comprehensive policies protecting faculty and students from online attacks
Automated Hiring Discrimination: Rigid algorithms systematically exclude qualified candidates, particularly impacting marginalized communities

📺 Watch

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

John Spencer explains UDL principles with practical classroom strategies. Universal Design for Learning ensures educational environments remain accessible and flexible, accommodating diverse learning needs through multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression.

UDL transforms traditional one-size-fits-all approaches into inclusive frameworks that benefit all learners while specifically supporting students with disabilities, different learning styles, and varied cultural backgrounds.

📚 Read

KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor

Long-time reader and friend Bryan Alexander shared this Kaiser Family Foundation resource tracking public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations. The data reveals fascinating demographic patterns:

The unvaccinated population tends to be younger, less educated, Republican.

When examining parents during the pandemic, results become more complex:

Four in ten parents of children ages 12-17 report their child received at least one vaccine dose
Four in ten parents of children under 12 prefer to "wait and see" before vaccinating their child

These insights inform equitable public health strategies and communication approaches.

Brazil enacted unprecedented legislation making certain content takedowns illegal under national law—the world's first such approach. While other governments implement rules forcing platforms to remove more content proactively, Brazil moves in the opposite direction.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, warns:

"Such an approach would essentially be a political decision to move in the direction of an Internet with even more vitriol and toxicity which, of course, is often directed primarily against women, minorities, and people with political views that sway from the mainstream."

This experiment could establish dangerous precedents for global internet governance and platform accountability.

Michael Bérubé provides comprehensive guidance for defending faculty, staff, and students from online trolls and harassment. Verena Roberts recommended this crucial resource addressing academic vulnerability in digital spaces.

Bérubé references essential institutional resources:

Faculty Support Safety Guidance from the University of Iowa
Social Media Support and Resources from Penn State

Every academic institution should develop comprehensive policies protecting community members from online harassment—especially administrators who must understand and address these challenges systematically.

Automated Hiring Software Rejects Millions of Candidates

A Harvard Business School report reveals how rigid hiring algorithms systematically exclude qualified candidates. These automated systems often reject applicants for minor resume gaps, non-traditional career paths, or formatting issues that human reviewers would easily understand.

The research demonstrates how algorithmic bias perpetuates employment discrimination, particularly affecting career changers, military veterans, parents returning to work, and other "hidden workers" with valuable but non-linear experiences.

Organizations must rethink hiring practices to uncover human talent that algorithms miss.

How to Build a Bigger Following on Twitch

Twitch serves as a video live streaming platform focusing on gaming, esports competitions, music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams.

Building authentic audience engagement requires content focus rather than numbers obsession:

Prioritize content quality over metrics
Participate actively with other creators and communities
Collaborate across genres with streamers outside your primary category
Maintain consistency in scheduling and presence
Promote strategically on other platforms, especially before streaming events

Success comes from genuine community building rather than follower accumulation.

🔨 Do

Build Resilience Through Daily Exercises

Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki recommends these evidence-based practices:

Visualize positive outcomes - Mental rehearsal strengthens neural pathways
Transform anxiety into progress - Channel nervous energy toward productive action
Try something new - Novel experiences build cognitive flexibility
Reach out to others - Social connections strengthen resilience networks
Practice self-affirmations - Positive self-talk improves stress response
Immerse in nature - Natural environments reduce cortisol and improve mood

Detailed guidance available here.

Alternative approach: pandemic living wisdom from an 18th-century poem offers timeless guidance for challenging times.

🤔 Consider

If you're too bright for others, they'll try to find some shade.

Lisa Nichols

This powerful observation connects to multiple themes in this issue: the harassment faced by academics online, the challenges of standing out in automated hiring systems, and the broader difficulty of maintaining authentic voice in conformist digital environments. Nichols reminds us that excellence often provokes resistance, but authenticity requires courage to remain bright despite others' attempts to dim our light.

The 18th-century perspective Ian references suggests that some challenges—like dealing with those who try to diminish us—remain constant across centuries, requiring timeless wisdom about resilience and community support.

Previous: DL 302 • Next: DL 304 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

Assessment Reform — Universal Design for Learning supporting diverse learners
Platform Governance — Brazil social media rules and regulation challenges
Digital Safety — Academic harassment crisis and online targeting
Algorithmic Bias — Employment systems filtering out qualified candidates

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.

The smartest person in any room anywhere': in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland.

This post made the rounds in my circles online. I really like the closing statement:

I think the biggest difference between the 20th century and the 21st is that in the 20th century you were able to see "the future" in your head. There were new ways of envisioning, say, an information utopia – or an ecological harmonisation of humans with everything non-human. But here in the 21st century we're only able to possibly glimpse a small workable future, and even then only if we work at it incredibly hard. That's a huge difference in looking at what lies down the road.