Teaching young people social skills for a lifetime

We often talk about the fine line between the online and offline world, encouraging people to adopt the same behaviour online as they would in the real world. But how can we make sure that children and young people are equipped with the right offline social skills that would allow them to surf the web safely and behave in an acceptable manner online?

Date 2016-01-20 Author BIK Team
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Being safe online at any age not only requires awareness and knowledge but also quite a mastery of skills, be it digital literacy skills, social skills, communication skills or emotional skills. Arguably, it's important to have a little bit of everything in order to have a safe online experience…nevertheless, it's also important to be socially and emotionally skilled in order to become an empowered, resilient and empathic user of modern technology. inspirED, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) youth resources and campaign, can help young people get started. 
 
inspirED is part of a new collaboration between the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Facebook to provide valuable SEL resources, connect passionate educators, empower youth, and bring greater wellbeing to schools. Although based in the US, the outcomes of this initiative are likely to be of much wider use and interest. inspirED is a pool of activities and lessons including ten-minute activities, one-hour activities, longer-term projects, videos and other resources. The lessons and activities focus on emotions that are important to teenagers in their daily school and personal lives. 
 
Young people can use social media to start and share the discussion about their inspiration using #iminspiredby to raise awareness around the impact that inspiration and emotion have on the way we learn. Share your #iminspiredby post and photo/video on Facebook or Instagram.
 

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