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Building inclusive online communities
What makes us feel like we belong? Can an online game, a group chat or a shared digital project help bring people together? And what happens when someone is left out? During this 90-minute Anti-Bullying Week Dream Space LIVE, pupils will explore digital belonging and discover how kindness, inclusion and respect can help create welcoming spaces, both online and offline.
In collaboration with the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre, pupils will take part in classroom discussions, thought-provoking challenges, and fictional scenarios inspired by online gaming, group chats, and digital communities. Whether they already spend time in these spaces or are only beginning to explore the digital world, pupils will investigate what helps people feel accepted, valued and connected, recognise how exclusion and bullying behaviour can affect others and explore safe ways to offer support. Drawing on this year's Break the Silence campaign, we'll also consider why noticing harmful behaviour, speaking to a trusted adult and supporting one another can make a difference.
No student devices, coding experience or specialist equipment are needed, just a classroom screen, paper, pencils and plenty of ideas!
Learning objectives:
- Explain what digital belonging means and identify behaviours that help people feel accepted, included and respected in digital communities.
- Recognise examples of exclusion and possible bullying behaviour in fictional online situations and explain how these behaviours can affect someone's sense of belonging.
- Choose and justify safe, supportive responses to fictional online situations, including ways to help others and seek support from a trusted adult.
- Design, test and improve a paper-based plan for an inclusive digital community, using fictional challenges to evaluate how their ideas encourage belonging and positive interactions.
Date: Friday 20 November
Time: 10:30am-12pm