Using Digital Media to Develop Students' Respectful & Ethical Minds

Reflect on Julene Reed’s article and post a blog entry that presents an idea for using digital media as part of a project, activity or lesson in which you aim to develop students’ respectful and ethical minds.

Our school district participates in the No Place For Hate initiative by the Anti-Defamation League. Each year we present three major projects in order to meet the requirements and be given our NPFH status. I, along with other voluntary educators in our building, have taken on some difficult endeavors this year. For one of our projects, we host an assembly at the beginning of each month based around character development themes; kindness, compassion and empathy, tolerance and acceptance, etc. These assemblies have three purposes. First, they award students that exemplified the previous month's theme by giving them a leaf to add to our school's community tree. Second, they present the new topic for the month. To present this topic, one of my colleagues has spent hours creating moving and motivating videos. Below is an example of one from our theme on "Empathy and Compassion". As illustrated, these videos present images, sounds, and words in order to spark a conversation. After watching the video, our principal has a quick Q&A session with the student body. Then the assembly ends.

Teachers have found that the video is a perfect segway into a conversation of the month's theme. The older grade levels have rewatched the videos numerous times in order to dive into the history behind the images and events. And, the younger students seem to understand the underlying themes quite well.

In addition to the video, our NPFH team organizes classroom lessons revolving around these themes and passes them on to the teachers in the building. The team writes a monthly newsletter focusing on a specific diversity awareness topic. These newsletters are passed out to parents and discussed within the classrooms. The newsletters also spark conversations about bullying awareness and prevention.

These projects, lesson plans, and conversations positively impact our students' ethical and respectful minds. They present background knowldedge of other cultures, provide viewpoints different from the norm, and induce students to put themselves in others' shoes.