Partner with educators, leaders, students and families to foster a culture of respectful online interactions and a healthy balance in their use of technology.

ISTE STANDARDS FOR COACHES

Building a Positive Online Culture

The last few years have been a sea change in technology use in schools. After the challenge of moving classes to remote learning at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, schools in our district moved to one-to-one devices, with all of our middle schoolers being issued laptops. For students who are already on personal devices all the time, the additional technology time during the school day makes it so that a positive technology-based learning and socializing environment is essential.

Early in the 2020 school year I wrote about healthy technology boundaries and well-being during remote learning. Some of the recommendations for forming those boundaries include ensuring that students offline lives are productive and active, using technology-based tools to help them make positive decisions, and involving the child’s entire community.

Developing a positive digital culture with children requires considering the unique needs and strengths of their developmental needs. Working with adolescents can be particularly challenging in that the impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors that are part of this developmental stage so helping them navigate technology environments requires extra care.

The unique traits of adolescents make navigating digital environments particularly risky.

Working with educators to foster an online environment that nurtures and supports learners by helping them develop a healthy balance of technology use and positive digital citizenship.