We’ve assessed the vulnerabilities of our brick and mortar spaces and made plans for the unthinkable. When all else fails, we’ve learned to Run, Hide, Fight. Yet, we often neglect to consider proactive safety efforts in our virtual learning environments. The session and interactive discussion will explore how to identify and manage safety concerns in the online classroom and suggest strategies for supporting distance students of concern.
We’ve assessed the vulnerabilities of our brick and mortar spaces and made plans for the unthinkable. When all else fails, we’ve learned to Run, Hide, Fight. Yet, we often neglect to consider proactive safety efforts in our virtual learning environments. Educators are struggling to simultaneously uphold free speech, prevent hate speech, and foster critical thinking. It can be difficult to determine when we have seen something and need to say something, especially if concerns are from a distance.
It is easy to feel a false sense of physical safety in a virtual environment, but we cannot deny that mass shooters leave a trail of warning signs in their cyber world before they carry out an attack. Our learning spaces are increasingly cyber. Emerging learning technology such as gamification, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence will push the limits of imagination and social interactions within our learning environment, making judgment calls more confusing for both educators and students. We will come across red flags in our online classrooms, and if we are not proactive, those red flags can easily translate into mass casualties within the halls of our brick and mortar buildings.
This interactive education session will include an interactive discussion and outline experiential and research-based practices to:
·identify warning signs in the online classroom and suggest strategies for managing them
·outline ways to support specialty distance populations with the aim of reducing frustrations and encouraging success
·provide tips for starting a larger conversation on these sensitive subjects at your institution
·live poll the audience periodically to better understand their familiarity and beliefs regarding topics presented.
Structure:
1.Welcome; Intro; (5 minutes)
2.Scenario presented, audience response measured via PopIn Live followed by open discussion (5 minutes)
3.Overview of experiential and research-based data regarding digital warning signs and active school shooters (5 minutes)
4.Overview of experiential and research-based data regarding live and cyber social interactions of Generation Z and specialty online populations (5 minutes)
5.Strategies for the classroom, supporting distance students, and opening and institution dialog (15 minutes)
6.Open, facilitated, discussion