How's Your #DigiMindset?
A simple question to start a big conversation!
Why and how digital content is accessed and used by adolescents can arguably affect learning, physiological and psychological health and development, social capabilities, and regulatory state, for better or worse.
For the worse
Digital distraction, technology addiction*, learning engagement**, and unsafe illegal or harmful behaviours are indicative of unhealthy digital habits. With such negative consequences of use, can we stop or slow the 'tide of technology'? Should we?
For the better
Digital content, and how it is accessed, facilitates learning, both synchronously and asynchronously, enables connection, communication, collaboration, and supports creativity, regulation, and social interaction.
Acknowledging both better and worse does not make it any easier for us as parents or educators to navigate, in fact I suggest it makes it messier, more complex.
This briefly presents digital content access as a 'wicked problem'.
What is a digi-mindset?
Modelled considering a school wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS) framework, the digi-mindset establishes a praxis, an accepted practice, to support positive decision making and digital habit formation for adolescents around why and how they access digital content.
Developed through a comprehensive research and design process, the digi-mindset praxis represents the distillation of the wicked problem of digital content access, into 1 governing digi-mindset, the why and how as 2 solution hemispheres, and 6 guiding principles linked to each hemisphere.
1 mindset : 2 hemispheres : 6 principles
Why has been framed as "germane", or fit for purpose, how has been framed as "mindful", in the moment.
Take some time to explore the interactive infographic below. The Principles menu in the site navigation will lead you to a deeper understanding and application of each principle.
“Technology is a key means of facilitating an individual’s exploration and construction of knowledge”
(Selwyn, 2021, p.82).
Deeper reading
*To read more about digital distraction and technology addiction, the document below provides a research analysis of impact on student learning.
Impacts of digital distraction and tech addiction.pdf**To read more about learning engagement, specifically for marginalised learners, the document below is a deep-dive into an emerging engagement strategy.
Trauma Sensitive Hierarchy of Engagement.pdfNot intended as a behavioural plug-in, the digi-mindset is designed as a set of cultural attitudes to shape and influence digital habits and interactions.
A note on site navigation and referencing
You may have noticed that the content on this page links out to "deeper reading". By design I have tried to keep the page language user-friendly, and through referencing or external document links you can dig deeper, to develop a more informed understanding of how and why the digi-mindset is the way it is. Rather than bombard you with information, you decide to what level you choose to interact.
Further to this, the Home, Principles, and Media pages may be as deep as you want to read. If you would like to know more, like how the problem was unpacked, how the solution was developed, or a look at the implementation plan, then the corresponding pages will give you insight into the research, and the design process in developing the digi-mindset praxis.
As a final introductory note, as a text formatting decision, some of the statements on this page have not been fully referenced, and they are making significant claims about healthy adolescent development and learning engagement. Deeper reading through the site and linked documents substantiates the content presented, and references original author concepts accordingly. Where in-text citation has been used, or authors have been acknowledged through direct quotes, full references are available from the references page.
Ethical boundaries
Development of the digi-mindset praxis has been grounded by three principles as ethical boundaries, guiding decision making, and acting to refocus priorities. The ethical boundaries originate as foundation principles for "Principled Innovation", a design methodology described as "the process of becoming" (Mishra, 2020). When interacting with any of the content on this site, I ask that you keep these principles in mind, they will help contextualise application of the digi-mindset.
Principle 1: We value individuals and account for the uniqueness of social and educational contexts.
Principle 2: We collaboratively care for and are considerate of the well-being of individuals, communities, and society.
Principle 3: We create positive change by designing creative solutions to pressing educational problems.
(Mishra, 2020)