Consider the following "Digital Citizenship Expectations," adapted from The Core Rules of Netiquette, Glenn Singleton’s Courageous Conversations, and Digital Citizenship whenever you communicate in the virtual world.
Remember the person
- Everyone in class is learning together and often trying something new. This is an imperfect process, so practice patience, kindness, and respect. Treat others how they want to be treated (not how you think they want to be treated).
- In this online medium, the intent and impact of our words take different shape than in person. Assume someone’s best intent and be mindful of both intended and unintended impacts.
- You and your classmates have different schedules and bandwidth, so know that people will take differing amounts of time to complete tasks and respond.
- Each person in the class has their own comfort level with privacy, don’t share out others’ information
Communicate professionally
- Your Unity community (on Canvas, in emails, presentations, etc.) is professional and academic, which differs from more casual social media interactions.
- Present the best you: proofread and read aloud your posts for typos, errors, and to ensure you are clearly communicating your ideas.
Experience discomfort
- Learning can challenge our perspectives, ideas, and experiences. When you disagree with an idea, embrace the opportunity to explore a different perspective, even if your own remains unchanged. Take academic risks, be a work in progress, make some mistakes: this is how you learn.
- Experiment with new behaviors or ways of thinking and consider alternatives to keep building your skill set.
- Work through conflict and its resolution as a necessary catalyst for learning.
Be self-responsible and self-challenging
- This model of learning offers and expects a great deal of autonomy. You get out of a class what you put in, so be ready to engage fully.
- Remember, no one expects you to be fully self-sufficient (no one is!), ask for help when you’re unsure.