EdTech News for Friday, October 28, 2022: Identifying & Dealing with Micro-Aggressions Online, an LMS to deal with Student Mental Health

by Kate Baggott
October 28, 2022
EdTech News for Friday, October 28, 2022: Identifying & Dealing with Micro-Aggressions Online, an LMS to deal with Student Mental Health

Are micro-aggressions part of your online course engagement? It’s a question that instructional designers and instructors of online courses should ask when it comes to creating a safe environment for students with disabilities. Identifying and dealing with micro-aggressions in online courses may be an issue if their prevalence in social media is any indication.

“You’re so inspiring.”

“Oh, you live by yourself?”

For people with disabilities, these are patronizing and infantilizing statements. They are often accompanied by inappropriate questions about users’ personal lives and assumptions about what the person could do, or wear based on their disability. They are examples of micro-aggressions that people with disabilities constantly face in their social media feeds.

Nothing Micro about It: Examining Ableist Microaggressions on Social Media, is a new study presented on Wednesday at ASSETS 2022, the Association for Computing Machinery SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility by Sharon Heung, a doctoral student in the field of information science.

“When they [microaggressions] happen on social media platforms, it’s happening in front of a large audience – the scale is completely different, and then they live on for people to see forever,” said co-author Aditya Vashistha, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

The impact can be long-lasting and very destructive.

“We’re very concerned about how it’s shaping the way the broader audience thinks about disability and disabled people,” said co-author Megh Marathe, assistant professor of media, information, bioethics, and social justice at Michigan State University.

Press release: https://www.newswise.com/articles/online-microaggressions-strongly-impact-disabled-users?ta=home

Classera has raised $40 million USD in Series A round funding. It is the largest amount ever raised in the EdTech sector globally for a company with no previous funding. Proceeds will be used in the development of the company’s Learning Super Platform, or LSP, for the education and corporate training sectors.

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/classera-closes-one-of-the-largest-edtech-series-a-globally–a-40m-round-led-by-sanabil-301661155.html

What’s our favorite site this week? The Sustainable Media Center. Especially their re-examination of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death as it asks: Is there any truth in media anymore?

More information: https://sustainablemedia.center/

Student mental health and the necessity of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are the issues of our time. Yellowdig, a US-based EdTech SaaS start-up, has launched a suite of core measures the company claims can address both.

Yellowdig emphasizes how utilizing its online learning platform can offer enhanced mental health support to students.

The online system focuses on building connections with peers, which helps to build students’ confidence when interacting with other members of the community. The platform has a points system in which students receive higher scores when they interact more with others. The points incentive helps to reduce any sense of isolation or loneliness, both of which have become more prevalent due to the shift to remote learning systems during COVID-19 shutdowns.

“At Yellowdig, we are passionate about deploying our platform as a tool that not only enhances the average standards of learning and engagement but one that also helps educators to provide better mental health and DEI support. Our anonymity option helps to facilitate open conversations among students, which we have seen time and again leading to a greater sense of empathy and a deeper appreciation of complex issues linked to race, gender, and mental health,” said Shaunak Roy, CEO and Founder of Yellowdig.

Press release: https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/141460/Yellowdig-Unveils-Methodology-to-Boost-DEI-and-Mental-Health-Support-in-Education
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Kate Baggott

Kate Baggott is Head of Content and Communications for the Edusity family of companies that includes The Babb Group and Professor Services. A digital content veteran, Kate's portfolio can be viewed at http://www.katebaggott.com
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