This week we started to think of where our "line" of acceptable use of technology was. After reading the other posts I decided that my email line was more lenient as I will respond to emails later in the evening, but less lenient for cell phones as if they are out when they aren't supposed to be I will take them immediately for the day. As part of my "line", I also teach students what is expected in an email - a greeting, the body of the email, a closing statement - as well as reminding them to spell-check, not use all capitals, etc.
The core rules of netiquette, although written quite a while ago, still seem to apply to how we should behave online as well as what we should teach our students. I think 2 of the most important ones I follow are to remember the human and to act online as you would in person.
There are many posters that are available online that could be used to remind students about the rules of netiquette. This particular one goes into a little more detail than I may want to display in my classroom, though the 5 bullet points are certainly what I would want my students to think about.
Teaching netiquette wasn't a priority for my class this year as I was teaching as part of a team and we didn't ever plan a distinct lesson on it. In previous years, when I was the only one teaching a subject, I built it into my class a little more as a direct lesson. I think it was a disservice to my classes to not explicitly teach some netiquette or digital citizenship and will try one of the provided resources next year. My students are familiar with Brainpop and so I could build a lesson using that video and some questions to help students be aware of what netiquette is. Another resource we were introduced to was a game that taught digital citizenship (Digital Compass). Although the content of the game was addressing useful issues for middle and high school, the graphics of the game were more juvenile and would probably not be well received by my middle school students.
The idea of blind spots, or not being aware how certain aspects of your online identity can affect other parts of your identity, is new to me in that it has a specific name. I am aware of how my affiliates could affect my online identity and have unfriended some people on facebook because of where I live and what they post. Living in the Middle East, there is an understood and explicitly posted set of rules of online conduct. Although I generally feel that the government won't bother with a lowly individual, I want to make sure that there isn't anything I am connected to that could be cause for concern online. I have removed connections with people who are very vocal against governments or certain groups of people so that it is not misconstrued that I share the same opinions.
The dark and light discussion from this week was about using real names or being anonymous online. My first thought of this topic was that you should use your name, but as I went through the readings, my thought is that online names are no longer just real name or not. As pointed out in Boyd's book (2014), young adults often poke fun at the required name or birth date requirement to ascertain a level of control over their lives. When a site requires a real name, people will often combine first and last names or use initials. Students will often choose birth dates that are humorous (like creating an age of 69) to be allowed access to a site. As someone who chooses to use a shortened version of my name, I think the idea of having to use a real name is silly in most cases. I never use my full name, although I suppose Liz is a real name. But where do we draw the line between "real" name that is a nickname and a completely different nickname or username? In the case study by van der Nagal & Firth (2015), they compare how some sites require real names to prevent any un-civility or trolling as well as the merits of having sites with anonymous logins. Having read through I can see the benefits of both sites and think there is a place for both. I agree that Facebook should be somewhat "real" names - whatever people go by should be what they are called there. When using such a platform that is going to have personal pictures, real names seem appropriate instead of "anonymous" - though the real name may be whatever the person posting the pictures goes by such as a nickname, or a dragname or slightly mixed up name to prevent easy searching. In the example of mixed up name, I know several teachers who put capitals or spaces in their names in not the right places to make themselves not as easily searchable by their students. I think this is fine as a measure of privacy to keep their personal and professional lives separate.
In conclusion, this weeks readings and discussions provided some reinforcement of ideas that I already had as well as some new ideas about why people may choose different names or actually be in an anonymous forum.
References:
Boyd, D. (2014). it's complicated: the social lives of networked teens. USA: Yale University Press.
Brain Pop Digital Etiquette. [https://www.brainpop.com/technology/digitalcitizenship/digitaletiquette/]
Digital compass. [https://www.digitalcompass.org/game/]
The core rules of netiquette. [http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html]
van der Nagal, E. and Firth, J. (2015) Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity. First Monday, 20(3). Retrieved from: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5615/4346
The core rules of netiquette, although written quite a while ago, still seem to apply to how we should behave online as well as what we should teach our students. I think 2 of the most important ones I follow are to remember the human and to act online as you would in person.
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Teaching netiquette wasn't a priority for my class this year as I was teaching as part of a team and we didn't ever plan a distinct lesson on it. In previous years, when I was the only one teaching a subject, I built it into my class a little more as a direct lesson. I think it was a disservice to my classes to not explicitly teach some netiquette or digital citizenship and will try one of the provided resources next year. My students are familiar with Brainpop and so I could build a lesson using that video and some questions to help students be aware of what netiquette is. Another resource we were introduced to was a game that taught digital citizenship (Digital Compass). Although the content of the game was addressing useful issues for middle and high school, the graphics of the game were more juvenile and would probably not be well received by my middle school students.
The idea of blind spots, or not being aware how certain aspects of your online identity can affect other parts of your identity, is new to me in that it has a specific name. I am aware of how my affiliates could affect my online identity and have unfriended some people on facebook because of where I live and what they post. Living in the Middle East, there is an understood and explicitly posted set of rules of online conduct. Although I generally feel that the government won't bother with a lowly individual, I want to make sure that there isn't anything I am connected to that could be cause for concern online. I have removed connections with people who are very vocal against governments or certain groups of people so that it is not misconstrued that I share the same opinions.
The dark and light discussion from this week was about using real names or being anonymous online. My first thought of this topic was that you should use your name, but as I went through the readings, my thought is that online names are no longer just real name or not. As pointed out in Boyd's book (2014), young adults often poke fun at the required name or birth date requirement to ascertain a level of control over their lives. When a site requires a real name, people will often combine first and last names or use initials. Students will often choose birth dates that are humorous (like creating an age of 69) to be allowed access to a site. As someone who chooses to use a shortened version of my name, I think the idea of having to use a real name is silly in most cases. I never use my full name, although I suppose Liz is a real name. But where do we draw the line between "real" name that is a nickname and a completely different nickname or username? In the case study by van der Nagal & Firth (2015), they compare how some sites require real names to prevent any un-civility or trolling as well as the merits of having sites with anonymous logins. Having read through I can see the benefits of both sites and think there is a place for both. I agree that Facebook should be somewhat "real" names - whatever people go by should be what they are called there. When using such a platform that is going to have personal pictures, real names seem appropriate instead of "anonymous" - though the real name may be whatever the person posting the pictures goes by such as a nickname, or a dragname or slightly mixed up name to prevent easy searching. In the example of mixed up name, I know several teachers who put capitals or spaces in their names in not the right places to make themselves not as easily searchable by their students. I think this is fine as a measure of privacy to keep their personal and professional lives separate.
In conclusion, this weeks readings and discussions provided some reinforcement of ideas that I already had as well as some new ideas about why people may choose different names or actually be in an anonymous forum.
References:
Boyd, D. (2014). it's complicated: the social lives of networked teens. USA: Yale University Press.
Brain Pop Digital Etiquette. [https://www.brainpop.com/technology/digitalcitizenship/digitaletiquette/]
Digital compass. [https://www.digitalcompass.org/game/]
The core rules of netiquette. [http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html]
van der Nagal, E. and Firth, J. (2015) Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity. First Monday, 20(3). Retrieved from: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5615/4346
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