My Privacy and Facebook
I’m not leaving facebook today. At the risk of insulting the 26565 committed leavers (as of 9.50pm tonight), I am not sick of facebooks lack of respect for my data. On occasion I am sick of facebook users lack of respect for their own data though. The definition of privacy is to be separate from others or not seen by others. The very act of having a facebook account is to share with others or interact. I understand that selling our data to others wasn’t what we signed up for, yet it was kind of obvious to me it was going to go that way. Nothing is free!
The thing about facebook, twitter, youtube, blogging, and all the stuff we do online is that it is not private. It’s not hidden. We really need to know that. No one can get information about you that you don’t give them though. There is no one with a gun to your head telling you to reveal all the ups and downs of your life or your breakfast preferences. You willingly provide that information or preference. There are no paparazzi following you and photographing your family and all the things you like to do and publishing them to the world….you do that yourself.
I think it is the myth of privacy online that we need to quit. I feel my privacy could be invaded if my phone calls were listened into or if there was video surveillance cameras that I wasn’t aware of. Satellites have concerned me because I can’t see them and I am not aware of what they are watching. I was a bit startled by Google Street View, when it came to my town. I felt that was potentially an invasion of privacy.
People only know what you tell them, or show them. If you want something to be private, keep it to yourself.
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Pruning
After attending the Cybersafe training day on Thursday I have pruned my facebook of all current students. I was reluctant to do that because I felt that I was a responsible user of social networking, but the implications and lack of control over what others post, creates vulnerabilities for teachers. I like to be socially inclusive. If a person I know requests to be my friend, I would need to have a clear reason for saying no. It’s easier to have no current students than to make judgement calls.
Greg Gebhart the facilitator is very knowledgeable and I highly recommend his site IT Vision for educators. I have completed a few IT courses with Greg over the past few years. He is a great resource to teachers having been a teacher and possessing a practical and grounded view of how to work with IT in schools.
I have also pruned my twitter account on the same basis. I’ve rid my feed of all the people I don’t read or aren’t really interested in as well as students. I don’t read my twitter feed that often though to be honest so I’ve created groups. The great thing about having different groups is that if I only check it once a week or so, I don’t miss as many posts in the areas I’ve created because the fewer amount of people makes it easier to catch up. Does that make sense?
I have also discovered a whole branch of my family on facebook this week. I think social networking is great. I love staying in touch with people who live all over the place. Although I generally have no time for reality TV, a family member is on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (vote Nick!), so I’ve been keeping up with his progress.
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Cybersmart
Tomorrow I am going to a Cyberbullying course. We had a speaker talk to our year 7s and 10s yesterday and there was not much he spoke of that I wasn’t aware of. I have been attending these kinds of talks for a few years now. I want to keep up to date to keep kids as informed and safe as possible.
Many of the teachers were amazed though. It’s great the whole staff is getting exposed to this information now. The Cybersmart website has a handy red button to report any offensive online behaviour and a counselling hotline.
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Online and Blogging latest thoughts
I am trying out this gadget called Zemanta. As you write your blog it comes up with images, links (wikipedia, amazon) and articles relevant to what you are writing. It’s a great concept but I’m still not sure about it. It seems to generate a heap of drafts that I can’t delete. I probably should do some more research into it…. but I want it to save time, not create another task!
During the holidays I reduced my feed reader from over 900 saved posts to 6! Quite an achievement for me. I used stumbleupon and delicious to store some of the information I thought was worth sharing or saving for future reference. I never want to get to that point again. I deleted some of the blogs that are just too wordy for me, or not interesting. There are some feeds that haven’t posted for a long time also that will probably be next to go.
This year I have had a huge increase in people searching for ‘What to wear to Big Day Out‘. I wrote that post a couple of years ago. I find it interesting and amusing the posts that get a lot of views, rarely the ones you think.
I intended changing the appearance of my blog over the summer holidays but really didn’t find the time. It was a busy holiday this year and my life seems much fuller lately. I have less solitude. I’m not complaining.
Related articles by Zemanta
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Teachers and Social Networking
In QLD teachers have been banned from contacting students on social networking sites. This bothers me. There are so many things I see as wrong about this stance. Students can run into trouble online. There are no adults in their lives giving them any feedback about the publishing they do online. I have attended a number of talks on cybersafety and cyberbullying. I read numerous blogs about education and using social networking software for educational purposes. This just reeks of people who don’t know what they are talking about wanting to control something they have limited understanding of.
I think inappropriate behaviour is not acceptable anywhere, banning useful tools is not going to stamp out inappropriate behaviour. Teachers have the potential to set an example online as they are expected to at school.
Michael Carr-Gregg at one of those talks last year said the internet was like the Wild West where the children were there with no adult supervision. These restrictions placed on teachers could discourage teachers from the learning and participation they need to effectively guide students. A fellow staff member attended a cybersafety course recently and told me they were advised not to talk about online participation if they had no experience of it. Students would see right through it. Makes sense doesn’t it?
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These Days…
We have laptops in many classes now. There is so much to teach about using the Internet. This week we had a learning experience about Twitter. Some students were using it as though it were a private chat room. I guess because all their usual chat channels are blocked by the schools ‘protection systems’ it was too much to expect that given a way to communicate with one another, they would be able to resist! Never mind they are sitting in the same room… high tech note passing, yet pretty silly when they realised they had potentially shared their notes with anyone online who’s interested. The more I use technology in the classroom, the more I believe that the fear of computers replacing teachers is not in the near future. Young people may not fear technology, yet there is so much they need to learn about socialising, reputation, logic, the list goes on and on…..
I had a tense meeting after work. Before I went, I said to Rhonda “I’m going to shut up. I’m not going to say anything, I’ll let others have a go this time.” Famous last words. I find it so frustrating when people are full of remarks about things until given the opportunity to speak to the person in charge. So I can’t resist saying what’s on my mind, when others seem unable to remember what they think.
After school was a lot more pleasant on a lot of levels. I got to spend some time with the Wii Fit. It was the first time for a little while that I made progress towards my goals, so that felt good. I’ve been conscious lately of letting some healthy habits slip.
Tonight we registered to play touch football socially. I am not sure if it’s such a good idea now. I’m feeling particularly unfit. I will give it a try though. It looks fun. Maybe it’s what I need to get fit!
Kate my little sister called last night from Berlin. She is having a ball and has been through Bruges and Amsterdam. I had to cut my chat with Wilma tonight short because a delicious meal from Darin had arrived on the table and I wasn’t going to let it wait.
My daughter has just sent me something she has written tonight that is one of the most precious things I have read for a long time. Her expression never ceases to delight me.
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Sorting Facebook
Last night I put all my friends on Facebook into different groups. I was inspired by having access to photos of someone I barely knew. Photos that were a touch revealing. I’m not sure I am that open. There are levels of privacy I want to maintain.
I looked into it, there are different levels of privacy in facebook but I hadn’t really explored them till then. I have my own criteria for adding friends on facebook, yet within are different groups/types of friends, sounds awful to categorise your friends, but I’m only human. If I know someone I am happy to add them. I don’t need to know them in person, or in current time, past is fine, I need to have some concept of who they are and how they are connected to me. The old ‘everyone’s welcome’ slogan I had when working at the Neighbourhood House, doesn’t apply on my facebook page.
By the same token, just because I know a person, doesn’t mean I want to share everything with them. I discovered last night that for each photo album you upload to facebook, you can set the networks or friend groups that you want to see them. It’s given me peace of mind. I don’t want to wonder about how many friends of friends can see my family photos and who they are.
Having said all that and feeling pretty much master of the universe as far as my privacy goes on facebook, I still wouldn’t put anything I thought would be detrimental to me online. anywhere. I still haven’t worked out how to control people tagging you in photos, apart from removing the tag. I was discussing this in class today. When you are out and about you aren’t necessarily looking around for people who are photographing you with their mobile phone. Perhaps privacy is dead.
What are your settings on facebook? Who can see your photos?
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Restaurant Email
Today I received an email from a local friend about a local restaurant. It was a negative review and story about the things that were wrong with the place. I was the 7th forward according to what I could read on the actual email. A couple of people along the way had added their own personal negative experiences. There were 32 recipients on the email I had received and looked like quite a number for each of the 7 previous forwards. I would hate to be relying on the success of that business. Funny thing I have eaten there recently and thought it had improved.
I didn’t add to it or forward it on but I wonder how things like that effect a business. There are so many places to eat here. I am going to count them. I’m pretty sure I have tried most of them in the past 4 months. I am eating out a lot lately. I think it’s because most of the time it’s only Darin and I home. If we are both tired after work, we just go out for dinner. I love it.
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Busy Making Other Plans
I haven’t felt like blogging lately. I think it’s because I am experiencing change in my life right now. I feel uncertain about decisions I’ve made and I’m no longer sure where I’m heading. Everything that was so clear has become a bit fuzzy.
I haven’t had as much time online the past few weeks. My feedreader lately contains over 300 unread posts and last night I started pruning my feeds with a ruthlessness I’ve never had before due to feeling so overwhelmed by the high figure! I joined twitter in the holidays, yet can’t possibly find enough time to know what’s going on there. Whenever I take a glance at it, seems like I am walking into a noisy party where there are lots of conversations going on that I can’t manage to get in on. I still like it though and will continue to drift in and out due to the occasional laughs I get from it.
This is not a complaint. I love my current state. It’s been a long time since I’ve met someone who has put my laptop in it’s right place. It’s been an even longer time since I’ve wanted to see someone every idle moment. I wonder if I’ve ever thought about another person so much and been so distracted in my life to be honest. I have no idea why I feel this way and it doesn’t even matter to me. I’m grateful. There is no logic involved. It just is.
Popularity: 7% [?]
I Have Myspace…
And I’m not afraid to use it!
I got it when my own children were quite young and I wanted to keep an eye on what they were doing online. Students have added me to their friends over the years. I think it’s a bit of a novelty for them to see an adult they know on Myspace. It’s good to stay in touch with past students. I rarely interact with students online. Mostly because I don’t have that kind of time. Five days a week is usually enough. There are teachers who use it effectively. I check it about once a fortnight now. I think my adult children are beyond me supervising them online now.
Tonight I have been verifying books for the Premiers Reading Challenge. I was absent from school on Friday, cause I’m not well right now. I didn’t get the chance to do all my usual last minute chasing up of kids who had forgotten to update their reading lists. So I posted a bulletin on Myspace! I will be interested to see how it goes down. So far, none of the kids I wanted to read it have responded.
Popularity: 7% [?]
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