Topic outline

  • Online ethics is about caring and acting to make online environments more positive, productive and meaningful places. This also involves Empathy, which is a paramount ability in avoiding violent online radicalization and promoting positive online behaviors and interactions, especially in a digital world where controversial issues are often discussed without considering that on the other side of the screen there are people like us. 

    This course consists of 5 modules. We invite you to introduce yourself, go through the course materials at your own pace and take the assessments at your convenience. After completing all the steps, you can download your course completion certificate. 

    We wish you happy learning!

    • Click above to read and download the Moodle Practical Guide for Learners and Trainers.


    • Start discussions: 1 Post replies: 2

      Welcome to the first discussion forum of our "Ethics and Empathy" online course.

      Take a minute to introduce yourself to your trainers and peers.

      Task 1. Answer to at least two of your colleagues' posts. Click the Reply button to enter your response. 

      Task 2. Create a new discussion topic to introduce yourself. Click the Add a new discussion topic button to post to discussion. Write your name and country in the Subject.

  • Module 1. Positive online behaviour

    By the completion of this module, you will be able to:

    • Use social media in a positive way
    • Create online interactions that promote positive behaviour
    • Recognize and deal with negative behaviour online

  • Forum activity 1. Positive online behaviour

    Objectives:

    • Identify online interactions that promote positive behaviour
    • Structure the content and ideas
    • Give feedback

  • Assessment 1

    • Receive a grade Receive a passing grade

      • Gain your first Badge "Initiator"
      If your score for the quiz is above 50% you will be awarded with your first badge.

  • Module 2. Empathy as a skill for life

    By the completion of this module, you will be able to:

    • Understand the importance of empathy
    • Explain what it means to have different perspectives on empathy
    • Illustrate emphatic behaviour on online communication

    Not available unless: Your Email address is not empty
  • Forum activity 2. Empathy as a skill for life

    A student recently came to the professor to discuss a problem she was having with her writing; she said that she felt "lost" when it came to starting a paper. The teacher responded in this manner:

    "I know exactly how you feel. Let me tell you what I do in those situations."

    Kia Jane Richmond (Richmond, 2000)

    While some might argue that the response was empathetic and ethical, after much consideration and research on empathy, the professor has decided that it was not. Rather than asking the student to tell in more detail about her difficulties, the professor assumed that own experiences with writing would provide enough data to respond effectively to the student’s request for help.

    This made the professor sharing own story considering that the response was not empathetic; instead, it bordered on condescension and manipulation, something of which the professor said, was not proud.

    Objectives:

    • Formulate an empathetic response
    • Structure the content and ideas

  • Assessment 2

    • Receive a grade Receive a passing grade

      • Gain your second Badge "Explorer"
      If your score for the quiz is above 50% you will be awarded with your second badge.

  • Module 3. Ethical thinking

    By the completion of this module, you will be able to:

    • Understand ethical behaviour
    • Explain how the use of social media can affect your future
    • Correct somebody in a professional way

    Not available unless: Your Email address is not empty
  • Forum activity 3. Ethical thinking

    Think about non-native digital individuals (digital immigrants). They represent the category of people born before or about 1964 and who grew up in a pre-computer world. Like all immigrants, they learn and make efforts to adapt to their new environment. Even though, they retain to some degree, their ‘accent’, making the adaptation a little difficult. You can recognize them:



    Objectives:

    • Understand the willingness of non-native digital individuals to talk in-person or on the phone, rather than via chat
    • Be aware of their reduced capacity to use multiple multimedia sources at the same time
    • Structure the content and ideas
    • Give feedback

    • Task 1: Start a discussion to share your understanding of the  digital immigrants challenges via the forum. Is there any situation coming into your mind that can be better understood and explained, being aware of the above judgements?

      Task 2: Reply twice to answer to at least two of your colleagues' posts.


  • Assessment 3

    • Receive a grade Receive a passing grade
      • Gain your third Badge "Researcher"
      If your score for the quiz is above 50% you will be awarded with your third badge.

  • Module 4. Ethical decisions

    By the completion of this module, you will be able to:

    • practice integrity when faced with ethical dilemmas
    • explain your personal responsibility to others on social media

    Not available unless: Your Email address is not empty
  • Forum activity 4. Ethical decisions

    Read the messages written in the test that is available online here.  Use the quiz to evaluate your abilities to spot the troll (Warren, 2020).

    Objectives:

    • Evaluate your abilities to spot the troll
    • Structure the content and ideas
    • Give feedback

  • Assessment 4

    • Receive a grade Receive a passing grade

      • Gain your fourth Badge "Expert"
      If your score for the quiz is above 50% you will be awarded with your fourth badge.

  • Module 5. Practice empathy

    By the completion of this module, you will be able to:

    • understand and feel other people’s experiences, feelings and points of view
    • create online interactions that promote positive online behaviours
    • evaluate pears online interactions from an ethical and empathic perspective

    Not available unless: Your Email address is not empty
  • Forum activity 5. Check your online conversation

    Objectives:

    • Evaluate the online conversation
    • Notice how your social media posts or other comments foster engagement, encourage discussions or create links between ideas. 
    • Give feedback

    • Start discussions: 1 Post replies: 2

      Task 1: Start a discussion about “Detecting trolling behaviour”. Write 3-4 lines to introduce an idea, connect with other ideas that may be already posted, share from your experience and/or invite others to share from their practices. You can also copy a chunk of text from a previous conversation. Copy the conversation and paste it, in plain text, into the text box of the app and click the submit button. Read the results. Share the results with your colleagues.

      Task 2: Reply twice to answer to at least two of your colleagues' posts.


  • Assessment 5

    • Receive a grade Receive a passing grade
      • Gain your fifth Badge "Maestro"
      If your score for the quiz is above 50% you will be awarded with your fifth badge, which is the last badge available for this course.

  • Course completion certificate

    You have reached the end of the course.

    Congratulations for going through all the online course modules!

    The link "Download your certificate for the Ethics and Empathy course" will be available upon completing all the tasks listed below.

  • Acknowledgement, Disclaimer and Copyright notice

    Acknowledgement. This learning material has received funding from the European Commission under the ERASMUS+ Grant Agreement 2019-3-RO01-KA205-078053, “Strategic partnership to develop open educational resources for teaching digital citizenship - DIGCIT”.

    Disclaimer. The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

    Copyright notice. CC BY. This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. © 2020 - 2022 DIGCIT Consortium