Is the Internet permanent?

Lesson 3: The concept of permanent and the Internet

Today’s class will primarily be a working class, however we will spend about the last 10 minutes checking out a website designed to help people in troubling situations: 

The concepts that we are looking at today in a bit of an indirect way are Digital Communication and Digital Etiquette

The expanding digital communication options have changed everything because people are able to keep in constant communication with anyone else. Now everyone has the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with anyone from anywhere and anytime. Unfortunately, many users have not been taught how to make appropriate decisions when faced with so many different digital communication options.

Technology users often see this area as one of the most pressing problems when dealing with Digital Citizenship. We recognize inappropriate behavior when we see it, but before people use technology they do not learn digital etiquette (i.e., appropriate conduct).   Many people feel uncomfortable talking to others about their digital etiquette.  Often rules and regulations are created or the technology is simply banned to stop inappropriate use.

Lets see how these concepts apply to the idea that things are permanent on the Internet.

Below you will see some excerpts taking from the webpage:  http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/12/the-terrifying-permanence-of-internet.html

Within in some of the items posted are links to other articles on the same topic, please feel free to check them out when you get a chance.

-       Whenever I talk about e-books, there are still some people who will chime in and say they can't imagine putting their library at the risk of a glitch and losing everything.

-       This is a serious misunderstanding. My e-book library is far more secure than anything on paper. My e-books live on multiple devices, they're backed up to my local backup drive and both Amazon's and Apple's clouds. If I ever lost one device I could instantaneously download the e-books onto another.

-       There's something about digital files that still feel so impermanent to people, and yet barring an unimaginable apocalypse they're more permanent than anything etched in stone.

-       People are now coming around to the unsettling reality that everything you say on social media lasts forever, but it cuts even deeper than that. This week we learned that Facebook may even be keeping track of the status updates you started to write but deleted before posting. Google knows every search you've ever made (and so, perhaps, does the NSA). There's very little you can do online that won't be stored, somewhere, forever.

-       All your digital mistakes, all your e-mails, all your photos, many of your darkest thoughts... they're preserved for eternity. You may now have the comfort of living your life mainly offline and may even be a social media recluse, but so much of your life is still out there.

-       There are now debates taking place in Europe and Australia about the "right to be forgotten" on the Internet, trying to preserve some sort of analog analogy into the digital era, but this seems to me to be a case where the genie is out of the bottle.

-       Humanity will never be permanent, at least on a cosmic timeline, but as long as our computer servers persist none of us will truly be forgotten. Long after our bodies have been turned to dust our digital footprints will live on, our searches and our e-mails and our online existence preserved as 1s and 0s in some chips in some computers in some server farms scattered around the world.

-       How many people are staying in relationships because they fear how starkly public breakups can be in the Facebook era? How many people have had their reputations destroyed online by one youthful indiscretion or even a colossal misunderstanding?

Well that was a little heavy handed wasn’t it? This lesson is not designed to scare you but some of the consequences for misusing the Internet can be a little scary. Now what I want you to do is to pick one or two of the excerpts and you are going to use them to create something about the permanent nature of the Internet. Try to pick the ones that you found the most shocking or that presented something that you didn't know about the Internet before. 

For this exercise you are going to have the choice to use one of the web based creation tools we have previously used, eg. Educreations, Powtoon, Moovly, etc. or another of your choosing.

Time to Work!!

*Class Discussion and Website review. *

NeedHelpNow.ca

In the above posts you will see the concept of permanent and how it relates to everything you do online. No this is not just to scare you, there are lots of great things about the Internet, and it allows you to do great things. But and it’s BIG but if you make a mistake or say something you shouldn’t it is out there and taking it back is not easy.

There are ways to get things removed from the Internet, for example if you send a picture to someone that you probably shouldn’t be sending., there are some avenues that you can take to get the picture removed and we will look at one of the websites that offer this service now:

NeedHelpNow- www.needhelpnow.ca

This is a Canadian site that assists people in removing pictures or videos that are of a sexual nature from the Internet among many other services as well. From dealing with peers, to legal implications of sharing these pictures, even offering emotional support. Just because you have a chance to remove things doesn’t mean you can be reckless

You can post your links to your creations here, This will allow me to keep track of whose is whose and then I can assess accordingly. Also I may be asking some of you to share your creations at the beginning of the next class.