Following my call to action for educators, I want to share my own report card. I’ve tried to teach Internet Governance concepts in my workshops.

Here is the honest breakdown of my experiments.

❌ What Failed: The History Lecture

I tried starting with the history of the internet (ARPANET, 1969, etc.). Result: Glazed eyes. Boring. Lesson: Students don’t care about how the internet was built. They care about how it works now. History is important, but it’s a bad hook.

❌ What Failed: The Acronym Soup

I tried explaining the “IG Ecosystem” chart (ICANN, ISOC, IETF, W3C, ITU…). Result: Confusion. Lesson: Structure is abstract. Focus on Issues first, then introduce the organizations as the players solving those issues.

✅ What Worked: The Roleplay (The “Shutdown” Scenario)

I divided the class into groups: Government, ISP, and Student Union. I gave them a scenario: “There are riots in the city. The Government wants to shut down the internet to stop rumors. Debat.” Result: Explosion of engagement. The “Government” group instantly invented arguments about safety. The “Students” argued for innovative ways to bypass blocks. Lesson: Gamification forces empathy and understanding of complex trade-offs.

✅ What Worked: The ‘Trace Route’ Activity

We ran a traceroute command to a popular site (like TikTok). We looked at the path. “Why did our data go through India?” “Why did it jump to Singapore?” Result: Technical curiosity turned into geopolitical discussion. Lesson: Anchor the abstract in the physical reality of the network.

Teaching IG isn’t about memorizing the names of Geneva conventions. It’s about sparking the realization that the internet is a human construct, and therefore, humans (like them) can change it.