Privacy in the Digital World
When you think of privacy, usually the first thing that comes to mind is having alone time away from any distractions or stressors. However, privacy is also a huge deal in the digital world. For many people, surfing the web and going on different websites with no actual knowledge of what is happening to your information/data tends to be a bad habit.
I myself am guilty of the same thing. I usually just accept the terms and conditions or cookies without reading first. Everyone knows that you have to accept the terms to proceed with what you are doing and they generally all say somewhat of the same thing so it seems unnecessary to read pages upon pages of stuff I am not going to remember anyway. Maybe it is just laziness on my part but it never seemed like it would be a big deal. In Lindsey C. Kim’s “Understanding and Maintaining Your Privacy When Writing with Digital Technologies”, she explains the importance of privacy and safety online and how it can affect the things you encounter when surfing the web.
Ways to Protect Yourself
After reading Kim’s article it made me realize that I need to step up my game when it comes to protecting myself on the internet. For instance, I will definitely start using ToSDR.org. It is an online service that allows users to summarize and rate the policies in the terms and conditions. I did not know something like that was a thing. Not only that but I will start using Mozilla as well. It is a web browser that was founded on the principles of transparency and open access. They value users’ privacy and maintaining a healthy internet. They do this by blocking thousands of common web trackers.
Freedom for Students
Additionally, when reading Martha Fay Burtis’s presentation, “Messy & Chaotic Learning”, she talks about how impactful LMS is and shines light on the importance of giving students creative freedom and liberty which is something that a lot of teachers struggle with either because of rules or control issues. However, she gave her students the opportunity to host their own website and have control over the domain.
In my personal experience at Kean, there are still plenty of professors who try to take control over technology. It is now my third year here and for every year I had at least one professor per semester who said their class was a technology free zone. I’ve seen people thrown out of classes for using phones/computers as if we are not the ones paying to be here. Professors struggle to have trust in students which can be understandable but it limits our freedom. It kind of does not make sense to me because technology is becoming the future and we should be able to use it and become familiar with it as it will be needed in many of our future careers.
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