Think Before you Click

 What is Online Privacy?

    Recently, it seems that my iPhone knows more about my wants and needs than any family member or friend of mine. Surely right now, my phone could tell you what I wanted for my upcoming birthday more than my mom, dad, or partner. Daily, I can be heard yelling, "How did you know that?" into the depths of my Instagram feed. I am constantly being reminded of the importance of online privacy and I always feel that it is being compromised, often shouting that I want to throw my phone into the nearest river. With that being said, I am guilty of signing many Terms of Service agreements without paying much attention, putting priority on convenience over my own privacy.

Photo source: Rob Cottingham Cartoons

 Why is this important today? 

    The privacy of the information that we share online is of the utmost importance today because well, this level of data gathering is unprecedented. The history of internet privacy is complex, but 2010 is when the internet was officially deemed, "complex and unpredictable" by the nation's top scientists. 

Image Source: Washington Post 

Illustrator: Harry Campbell

    Online privacy is all about the level of protection that one has while surfing the internet. Who has access to your information? How long do they retain it? What is it being used for? In episode one of The Privacy Paradox: What Your Phone Knows, Bruce Schneier, revered technologist and cryptographer, says," A few clicks and suddenly, we've given away a lot of rights invisibly." He also argues that we would resist carrying a government issued tracking device, but have no issue carrying our phones in our pockets. He likens the metadata being collected to having a private detective hired to spy on us. This metadata that we provide is incredibly valuable, personal surveillance data. This data is shared with the government, marketers, social media sites, and so much more.

The Importance of Privacy in my Learning Space

    I currently work as the Student Events Coordinator at Dominican University and was previously a teacher for nine years. Internet privacy is of the utmost importance to young learners and college students alike. I always think back to when I first had a Facebook. I was 18 and had little to no concept of what internet privacy was. Now, I (unfortunately) have access to 15 years of my every thought and picture of what I was doing when I was in college. I have always urged my students to be careful about what they post online. Social media is becoming popular for students at younger and younger ages. Can you imagine having access to social media at 9, 10, or 11? Students who post things online at this age are not using discretion with posting or with reading through the terms of service. This is extremely dangerous and many companies are taking advantage of this ignorance. Another thing that I tell my students is to cover their computer or iPad cameras. In this article, Christopher Soghoian discusses the importance of putting a piece of tape or Band-Aid over your device's camera. It is extremely easy for people to hack into computers and use the cameras to collect video footage. While some may think that this sounds like an episode of Black Mirror, this can happen often, especially to unsuspecting students. The next time that I have a classroom of my own, I will make sure to stress the importance of internet safety on day 1. 

Surprises, Knowledge Gained, and Changing Behavior

    I was very surprised to learn that it would take 76 hours a year for us to actually read through all of the user agreements that we are exposed to. This probably explains why I am guilty of never actually reading through them. I often fall into the trap that this Time article discusses; I am too lazy to read through everything and I assume that it won't actually hurt me in the long run. 

    After reading through many of these articles and listening to some podcasts, I am going to vow to make some simple changes that will help me maintain some semblance of internet privacy. First of all, before reading through these sources, I admit that I did not have a piece of tape over my camera. I am going to change that ASAP. I will also download a password manager stat. This also means that I will finally have to change most of my passwords from my old cats' names to something more complicated, but I know that it will be worth it in the long run. 

    I am thankful for access to these resources because I feel like once I am able to protect myself more online, I will be able to pass this knowledge down to my much more vulnerable students in the future. 

PLN-ty to learn

The Social Aspect

    PLNs, or Professional Learning Networks, are designed to help teachers compile insights, resources, and ideas from each other based on needs in their personal classrooms. After reading about PLNs this week, it is obvious that they allow for more choice in gathering learning materials than some traditional PDs. PLNs are an essential part of growing as an educator. 

    Before I even clicked on the short videos from the Thinglink this week, I knew that I would most likely identify with the social area of PLNs. I am an extremely outgoing person and often search beyond my school or classroom for support from other teachers, friends, and/or family. I also decided to take the Five Factor Test provided in the module and my results showed that I am 97% extroverted, so the fact that I lean more towards the social area of PLNs makes a lot of sense. While I identify the most with the social area of growth, I do identify with all of the other areas as well. 

Image Source: Psychologist World

      Being a social person during the pandemic took an extreme toll on me, especially while working from home and during hybrid. I really thrive when I am able to pop into my colleagues' classrooms to ask a quick question or bounce ideas off of them. When we were working from home, I created a staff Padlet so that we could highlight the positive things that we saw each other doing in our virtual classrooms. The staff morale was at an all time low and I think that some of this had to do with a lack of connection. Having connection with other teachers is crucial, whether it be on a lunchtime walk with a teaching team or meeting in the teacher's lounge for 10 quick minutes. It was difficult to walk down the empty hallways, past classrooms, unsure if the person you wanted to talk to was in a Zoom meeting or just staring with blank eyes at their computer screen. 

My PLN Experiences

  During the pandemic, a time when everyone felt isolated, PLNs were more important than ever. I was actually lucky enough to join a study that was being done by two professors in Pennsylvania. Every two weeks or so, teachers from all over the country met on Zoom to discuss the hardships we were experiencing during the pandemic. It was extremely cathartic and eye opening to hear what other teachers from around the country were going through during this unprecedented and stressful time. At the end of our meetings, I also participated in a virtual conference with this group to discuss our findings and also to share the letter that I wrote to my board of education during the pandemic. This PLN was enlightening and much needed for me and I am so happy that I was able to be a part of this study. 

For this week's PLN assignment, I joined a Facebook Group called the Teach Better Team. I wanted to challenge myself to get back on Facebook for this because after watching Tanya Menon's Video, I realized that I have been guilty of disconnecting. Tanya says, "When your psychological world is breaking down, the hardest thing to do is to try and reach out and build up your social world." This is exactly what I did during the pandemic. I deactivated my Facebook and disconnected from the thousands of friends that I had made through my travels over the years. 

Image Source: Facebook

Immediately after logging onto Facebook, I felt a sense of connection with my friends that I haven't had in a while. I checked into see how some of my friends were doing. I checked which birthdays that I had inevitably missed. When I was approved for the Teach Better Team group, I perused and watched a few videos and looked through the posts. What I love about this group is that many teachers are posting questions, materials to share, and videos chatting about different aspects of being in the classroom. I really enjoyed this info-graphic on Ramadan that was shared. They also have a podcast called Daily Drop In which promotes teacher connection and support. Being a part of a group like this during the pandemic would have really helped me and I regret not reaching out more while I was struggling in the classroom. Through this group, I learned that teachers thrive through connection, whether that be virtual or in person.  

I mentioned this in my first blog post, but at the very beginning of the pandemic, I started a Facebook group called Breath of Fresh Air, full of friends around the world, designed to help build community and boost morale during the insanity of 2020 and beyond. I checked in on the group to see how it was doing and to my surprise, people are still posting. I realized that creating a positive community via this group, despite not being on Facebook anymore, was my way of helping my community foster connection during a difficult time. 

A little about me....

 A little about me...

Photo credit: Blog Author

Hi new classmates! My name is Jess Daniels and I am excited to be taking this class to learn a bit more about how social media impacts student learning. I have definitely seen the pros and cons of social media use concerning  my students, especially when I was teaching middle school.  I apologize if you've heard this introductory story before, but here we go....

My 9ish year long teaching career has been full of ups and downs and started off in a pretty unusual fashion. When I was signing up for my student teaching placement at Illinois State University back in 2010, I saw the option to teach abroad for half of my practicum. Although at 22 I had never been on a plane, I jumped at the chance to move across the pond for three months to experience another country's educational system/culture. That sneaky travel bug is relentless, and after three months in England and a few months of subbing in the Chicagoland area, I moved across the world to Seoul, South Korea to start what would become a seven(ish) year teaching career in Asia. I stayed in Seoul for a year, teaching just about every subject imaginable, and then moved to Denver to be with my partner at the time. After a few months, I soon realized that I was not yet done with teaching in Asia (it's hard to give up the respect paid to teachers) and I went to an international school job fair at UNI in Iowa. I was ecstatic to receive a middle school social studies and language arts position in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam--which is where I stayed from 2013-2019 (with a few months teaching in Thailand peppered in). 

In August of 2019, I was reluctant to teach in an American classroom full time but eventually accepted a fourth grade position in a district that would turn out to be soul crushing. I worked at the same school for two years, 1 1/2 of those years being in the pandemic. My fears, and so much worse, were realized while I was working in this school and as such, I am taking the current year off of teaching and am unsure if I will ever be in the classroom full time again. I love my students and in fact, I just visited two of my kiddos from last year this past weekend, but I have no desire to be subjected to the lack of respect, pay, or terrible treatment that I (and many of my teacher friends) experience today. 

I currently work part time at Dominican and part time as a waitress. I am trying to carve out a path that allows me to maintain my mental health in a way that was simply not possible at my last job. My last school put me into a dual language position knowing that I was not yet qualified, so I started my ESL endorsement back in 2020 and will be done with my MAED in late June. I wanted to complete my Master's in case I ever find the right fit in terms of a school, but for now I am enjoying a much less stressful existence. 

Photo credit: Blog Author

Social Media 

Like most people, I have a very love hate relationship with social media. I can often be found deleting my Instagram one second and redownloading it the next. Since I lived abroad for so many years, I use Facebook messenger to connect with my friends around the world, but deactivated my Facebook in the midst of the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, I created a Facebook group called "Breath of Fresh Air," which was a page designated for posting pictures and videos that would cheer people up. It ended up being popular amongst my friends and their connections, but I ended up deactivating Facebook because during the pandemic, posting anything just seemed...strange to me? I felt guilty posting at times, guilty when I didn't post. So, I decided to eradicate that feeling all together. I still use Instagram but I set a timer and often try not to use it. 

When I was teaching in Saigon, I created a teacher Instagram account so that my students could keep in touch with me and/or check out cool projects from the day/week. I still have that account and will occasionally post to keep contact with my students. 

As a teacher and human, I am very invested in social justice and try to make my social media accounts reflective of that. I strive to be a teacher that creates safe spaces for my students, both in the classroom and online.