Special Reports

"Fifty Shades Darker" and What Educators and Parents Can Learn from It

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Looking at the title, one will ask how a website dedicated to education has to do with a film rated by the censorship board as R-18. More so, what how can a film filled with sexual content be any relevant to education at all? How can it give any insight to a teacher how to teach kids, even if they are teaching sex education? A lot actually and this article urges you to read to find out that there is a big insight educators can learn from "Fifty Shades Darker."

The insight came from "Fifty Shades Darker" director himself James Foley during the "VR on the Lot" discussion at Paramount. He announced that the team are planning to make a virtual reality (VR) version of the film to the delight of the fans who were present. The reason behind their decision was pretty simple but something the educational institution or educators, for that matter, give careful consideration to.

He said that digital (VR) technology can be likened to a train about to leave the station and will be going very fast once it leaves. If we want to keep up with that speed, he added, we need to re-invent.

Re-invention is the key and with that in mind, if we really need to make our children prepared with the challenges they have to face in the fast-changing world of digital technology, then the education sector also needs to re-invent itself. That means teaching kids digital skills that will keep them up with the "speeding train" of technology.

According to the World Economic Forum, teachers and parents need to equip and hone their children's digital intelligence, a "set of social, emotional and cognitive abilities that enable individuals to face the challenges and adapt to the demands of digital life," which can be divided into eight areas.

Digital identity is the ability to manage one's online identity and reputation. This includes the awareness of one's online impact in both the short and long-term period

Digital use is the ability to manage the use of digital media and devices as well as the mastery of achieving balance between his or her offline and online life.

Digital safety is the ability to manage safety and security risks online by teaching children to identify what causes these risks so they can avoid and limit these risks. Online risks includes violent and obscene contents online.

Digital emotional intelligence is the ability to display empathy and build good relationships online.

Digital communication is the skill needed to collaborate and work with others online through the use of various digital media and technologies.

Digital literacy is the skill that teaches the child how to search, evaluate, create, utilize, and share information and content. This also includes computational thinking.

Digital rights is the ability to distinguish and protect their personal and legal rights. This includes intellectual property, privacy, and their freedom of speech as well as their protection from hate speech.

By nurturing these skills in children, they will be able to develop values that will allow them to use technology wisely and responsibly, no matter how fast the train is speeding.

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