Education

The Internet has done wonders in allowing ease of access to education.  Search engines are extremely quick to use and provide far more results than an encylopedia would.  But the rise of online learning courses has meant that people don't even have to leave their house to get a degree. 

But is this method of learning really more efficient than traditional methods?


Efficient - yes.  Effective - not necessarily.

Online courses fit around people's everyday lives - they don't have to travel to and from lectures.  Submitting coursework all happens in the home, through e-mail or online submission.  But lack of face-to-face communication with lecturers has got to have a negative effect on the quality of work produced.


I completed an Open University short course last year, in my final year at school.  It was the most bizarre learning experience I have ever endured.  Instead of having friends whom I could discuss the work with in order to gain a better understanding, there was an online forum in which users would post questions and comments about the course. 

The forum was fantastic as a place where all users could turn to if they had a problem.  But without having been given the opportunity to get to know the people who were studying the same short course, how could I trust them and their answers? 


Often, arguments would break out on the online forum if one person disagreed with what another was saying.  People felt brave, knowing they could say whatever they like and gain no reputation in the real world.  This is a form of cyberbullying, which, as I have previously discussed in this blog, is a form of bullying that is easy to accomplish anonymously.


Another odd situation that occurred quite often was that someone would pose a question and recieve no answer.  If people don't know the answer to that particular problem, they can just ignore it - something that could not happen in the real world.  This is the reason that I, and I suspect, many other people, felt very iscolated whilst studying the course.  It wasn't like I could ask any of my teachers or schoolfriends, as they had no clue of the content of the course.


That's where the tutor comes in.  The only way in which a tutor could be contacted was by e-mail, and in special circumstances, telephone.  I was never in a situation where I needed to contact my tutor when studying the course, but many of the questions posed on the online forum were because the tutor had not responded to that person soon enough.  In the real world, you can go and see your tutor or lecturer and recieve an answer instantly.  This is where the Internet's 'instant' trait falls flat, as one tutor to hundreds of people from all over the world is not sufficient.

The following infographic contains a great detail of information, not just on online learning, but e-learning as a whole, including a mention of the Open University, with whom I studied my short course.



This infographic certainly supports the idea of e-learning, and I do too, due to its ease of access and the way it can be carried out at the user's own speed.

But I'm not sure if I would recommend e-learning as a method of achieving a degree.  Online courses just don't provide participants with appropriate learning materials - I think it is good to have a mixture of online materials and also physical class activities and tutorials. 

But everyone learns in different ways, so I'm not going to judge too harshly.

I think for young children, pre-primary school age, e-learning is a fantastic way to teach them basic skills like maths and spelling, before they are thrown into a physical learning environment.

References

Infographic from webpage:
JACKSON, N., 2011. Infographic: How the Internet Is Revolutionizing Education [online].  Washington: The Atlantic Monthly Group. Available from: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/infographic-how-the-internet-is-revolutionizing-education/240338/ [Accessed on 6 April 2012]

Privacy

We would never approach a stranger in the street and tell them all of our likes and dislikes.  We would never contact a known criminal to tell them our exact location on a night out.  And we would never bring out a photo album full of drunken photos to show our grandparents when they come to visit.
So why do we have a Facebook account?

Nothing on social media is completely private.

Before the Internet came about, we had control over all things listed above.  And we still like to pretend that we do.  We are in denial.

Yes - Facebook allows us to control our privacy settings, so only the people we select are able to view our profiles.

But Facebook also allows our friends to control their privacy settings, and, effectively, ours too.

The above screenshot from Facebook.com displays Facebook's current privacy setting options, regarding a user's profile and tagging.

The circled option refers to our friends. 

So in the case of our friend's privacy settings, that option will refer to us.

So whatever we post on our friend's wall could be available to a worldwide audience, and we wouldn't know.

It is impossible to exist online to a selected number of people.  Having a Facebook account opens up hundred of doors that people can open to access your personal information.

The above screenshot from Facebook.com indicates that Facebook's default privacy settings allow anyone anywhere to find you and access your contact details.

So the default settings are the most open, meaning that users will have to instantly change their settings if they wish to remain as private as possible.

Why is this?

The above screenshot from Facebook.com states that the information is available to anyone in order to maintain the idea of the "social network."  If these settings were private, people would never be able to connect.

In truth, most people are aware that their privacy settings online are not full-proof.  So why do we take the risk?

I'll finish this blog post with a simple answer to that question from John Friedman, Marketwatch media columnist:

"We're hooked. I am hooked. People are addicted to Facebook. It's like a narcotic. People love being on Facebook. They like having their artificial friends and their  universe and they won't leave."


References

Online Video
jeetz05. 2011. Social Media Privacy [online video]. 24 October.  Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9pFMSKPXSk&feature=related [Accessed on 5 April 2012]

Identity and Behaviour Online

This post looks at how we portray ourselves on social-networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

I'll begin by getting straight to the point - we always convey ourselves in way that comes across best.

If a friend tags us in a photo that we consider to be "ugly" or "embarrassing," the first thing we do is untag ourselves from the photo, or beg them to take it down.

The posts we make on our social networking sites are always of a humorous nature, or focusing on our achievements.  We wouldn't create a post just saying we'd failed our exams or lost our job, unless we were looking for sympathy, of course.

The profile picture we choose is always one that we consider we look our best in, as we know it is the first photo people are going to see when they access our social-networking profile, so we want to make a good first impression.

But is it really worth trying to convey ourselves online in the best way that we can?

No one's online persona is an exact match to their persona in the real world.

Why is this?

It could be due to ambiguity - a lot of what people say online can be interpretted to mean something else.

This is because when we are communicating with someone in text form, eg. by e-mail or social-networking sites, there is no tone of voice or facial expression coming into play.

Elisha Tan states in her article Why Are People Rude Online:

"Your speechless is silence offline but online it can be reflected as ‘…………….’ or simply the lack of reply... Moreover, the absence of speech offline lack can be seen as pondering, not wanting to argue further or ignoring depending on the accompanying body language, but ‘………….’ can be interpreted as a rebuttal, a roll of the eye or an act of eliciting laughter and you’ll not be able to confidently know which one it is"

Another aspect that makes our online persona so different may be due to the fact that we are hiding behind a computer screen. 

No one can see us. 

No one can hear us. 

So why not speak our minds? 

The keyboard brings us confidence. We use it to channel our emotions and anger - something we cannot do so freely using the telephone or when interacting face-to-face, as it would be considered inappropriate to the reciever.

The following article discusses the burst of confidence that we find ourselves obtaining when we connect to the Internet:

http://phys.org/news193046619.html

To finish, here is a video that contains some humourous points about the language that we use when communicating by text or online:

References

Online Video

ComedyTimeDir. 2010. Text Talk: Comedy Time [online video]. 18 June. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOXZhlbvcnE [Accessed on 3 April 2012]

Online Article

MILIAN, M. 2010. Real-life personas rarely match real-life behaviour, observers say [online]. Los Angeles: Phys.Org.  Available from: http://phys.org/news193046619.html
 [Accessed on 4 April 2012]

Online Article

TAN, E. 2010. Why Are People Rude Online [online]. Singapore: Tech In Asia. Available from: http://www.techinasia.com/why-are-people-rude-online/ [Accessed on 4 April 2012]

Online Censorship

As well as The Digital Divide, online censorship is considered a barrier to access, as people cannot always view the online content they want to.

Social networking sites and the Internet, in general, are constantly under high surveillance, which is a reason why people may prefer to use alternative methods of communication.  But communicating online has its benefits when it comes to censorship. 

Users can post comments on web pages anonymously.  This means that, even though censoring all comments on the web is impossible, even if the comment does become censored, the guilty user does not have to be identified.  This makes cruel tasks like identity fraud and cyberbullying all the more easier to achieve.


Why is fullproof online censorship so difficult to achieve?


New content is being uploaded to the Internet and updated everyday.  Whether it is in the form of new websites, webpages, social-networking profiles, blog posts, YouTube videos or users comments, each new piece of material is making the web more and more difficult to manage.

It is simply impossible to analyse every piece of information on the Internet and judge whether it is suitable for viewers.  That isn't just due the extremely high amount of new content, but also to the diversity of Internet users in terms of age, gender, race, culture, religion, education, occupation and social class.  A piece of content that is interesting, humorous or educational to one viewer, may highly offend another.

This infographic conveys the most commonly censored content currently online:

So why is it that blogs take up 20% of all censored content? 

They are entirely user-generated.  Users create the blog posts and users comment on them.


This means that before the content is created, it isn't regulated or checked against any legislation.

International Government Organisations are completely opposite to user-generated blogs, which is why the exist at the other end of the scale - they do not require nearly as much censoring.

References

Infographic from webpage
PAVLUS, J. 2011. Infographics: Internet Censorship Is Rampant Around the World [online]. New York: Mansueto Ventures, LLC. Available from: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663164/infographics-internet-censorship-is-rampant-around-the-world [Accessed on 30 March 2012]

The Digital Divide

The Internet is certainly a popular choice when it comes to communication - it's quick, worldwide and often free.  But that doesn't mean that it's everybody's preference.  This blog post looks at why people will avoid the Internet, whether by choice or because of limitations outwith their control. 

This is called The Digital Divide, and I have put together a Prezi presentation that provides indepth detail below:



"We are social beings who seek communication with others.  We are lonely beings as well.  Despite our fear of having our essential humanity reduced through comparison with a machine, we begin to relate to the computer whenever it appears to offer some company."

- Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen

References

Book
TURKLE, S. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Touchstone.

Stopping Cyberbullying

The Cybersmile Foundation is the only cyberbullying charity in the UK [Weatherley, 2012]. It's aims are to raise aware of the severity of cyberbullying and to provide help and advice for anybody affected by it.

The charity's biggest aim of all is to change current legislation to make cyberbullying become a criminal offence.

To help the Cybersmile Foundation achieve this goal, you can sign a petition following the link below:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/28797

I think the campaign is fantastic.  The Internet can be an effective learning tool for children; social media provides everyone with another way of communicating. It may be the only way some people can communicate with friends or family who live far away from them.  Cyberbullies should not get away with ruining the great potential that the Internet has.

References

Webpage
WEATHERLEY, M., 2012. Cyberbullying Charity - The Cybersmile Foundation. [online]. Brighton: The Cybersmile Foundation.  Available from: http://www.cybersmile.org/index.html [Accessed 10 April 2012]

Cyberbullying

Bullying takes many forms.  Categories of bullying include physical, mental, verbal, and now - with the increasing use of technology and, in particular, the Internet - cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying involves abusing another person through the use of technology and is most common among young people.  Prank calls can be made from mobile phones, hurtful messages sent by e-mail and social media can be used as a platform for posting nasty images of other people (known as denigration) or hacking into their online accounts (informally known as 'fraping').

Due to the large variety of methods and ease of access, cyberbullying is now the most popular form of bullying in the UK. [The Telegraph, 2009]

But why?

It has always been said that bullies are cowards, showering those who they see as weaker than themselves with nasty comments, all due to their own insecurities.  And with cyberbullying - never has that statement been more true. 

Cyberbullies are hidden by an online persona.  This means that they are not only anonymous to their victims, but they can also avoid gaining any witnesses.  It takes someone very brave to abuse someone face-to-face infront of a crowd of people, all of whom hold the power to report the incident to somebody senior, like a school headmaster.  When online - this is not a risk.  The number of witnesses can be in its millions, but with the identity of the attacker hidden, no one is any the wiser.

It can cause a great deal of anxiety to the victim when their bully is anonymous as it also means that they may be unable to identify why the person is attacking them, where they are and if it is a gang of people or one person. It also makes it very difficult for the victim to report the bullying to a friend, family member, teacher etc., as there are no names or faces to act upon.

Cyberbullies can still hold a strong power over their victims even if their identity is known.  In a school scenario, members of staff can keep an eye on the named bully during school hours, but they cannot prevent them from accessing their phone or computer when they are at home.  Young victims may hold a fear of telling their parents about the bullying incidents in case their parents remove or begin to monitor their access to their computer or mobile phone.

This video is a great example of the variety of media that can be adopted for cyberbullying:

In my view, people with a history of cyberbullying should have their Internet usage, both in school/at work and at home, closely monitored for a certain period of time afterwards.

Social media sites have made it a lot easier for cyberbullies to target their victims, so, to cancel out that fact, they should be making it much easier for victims to report their bullies.

The following website will be useful for anyone seeking help and advice on cyberbullying:

http://www.kidscape.org.uk/childrenteens/cyberbullying.shtml [Taylor, 2010]



References

Online Video
DarkMetalSkies. 2011.Cyberbullying: A real issue around teens [online video] 19 March.  Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB2t6jnELZo [Accessed on 7 March 2012]

Webpage
TAYLOR, D. 2010. Cyber Bullying and Online Safety [online]. London: Kidscape. Available from: http://www.kidscape.org.uk/childrenteens/cyberbullying.shtml [Accessed on 8 March 2012]

Bibliography

Webpage
OLWEUS BULLYING PREVENTION PROGRAMME. 2011.  What is Cyber Bullying? [online]. Minnesota: Hazelden Foundation.  Available from: http://www.olweus.org/public/cyber_bullying.page?menuheader=1 [Accessed on 8 March 2012]