Contributing to others learning experience is not locked to teaching them things, and EDTC 300 has given me an opportunity to learn that. Just by engaging others with enthusiasm and compassion you can contribute to others learning process by reinforcing them, and bolstering them with advice and compliments. This blog post will go over online interactions I have had with others throughout the semester that I think exemptlify this passive, positive approach.

Commenting on classmates blog posts.

Tweeting

Tweeting was hit or miss throughout the semester. This was a completely new concept for me, and I had to learn the ins and outs on the fly. I was able to find a ton of resources that I shared with my classmates throughout the semester, and interaction was good as well.

Responding to comments on my posts.

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Reached out to other social media platforms outside of twitter.

This course gave me a chance to hone my 3D printing skills, and because I had the extra time to be creative I used that momentum to mesh my painting and the new models. Twitter wasn’t doing it for me, and I was always lurking on Reddit so I decided to take the plunge and post on there.

The reception of the 3D printed model was way more far-reaching on Reddit than it was on Twitter. Within three weeks of printing and painting the robot suits for the class I had recieved 5 thousand upvotes, and hundreds of comments to respond to.

Although it was not primarily focused on education, having positive reinforcement on the internet really boasted my morale and encouraged me to continue this side of my hobby life.

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I also branched out to Youtube with less success, however the videos were intending to show my classmates that 3D printing is not as complicated as it is led on to be. I made two seperate videos breaking down the steps, from finding files to the completed, painted product.

Final thoughts.

Overall it was a positive experience. I learned a new skill, was taught how to make my own website/blog, and had a chance to network and better understand the importance of social media. It was a change of pace because I am not a tech savy person, and purposefully avoid social media. That being said, it is better to understand these things so I am more in-tune and up-to-date in any professional/casual setting.

This blog is supposed to be focused on finding a colleague in the class and consolidating all the personal data that is on the internet into a single blog post. After two classes focused on how easy it is to find personal information on others, I figured I would take a different approach. I want to write a short essay on how companies, and individuals, can access your personal data, why they would want to, and the future implications of having a borderline privacy free internet.

The question of how is easily anwsered, and it often involves the unread conditions in the small print. I will use Facebook as an example, however most social media apps have similar terms and conditions. Facebook vehemently denies selling user data, and they are correct when they say that. What they do is significantly more sinister in an attempt to skirt those regulations. They create a consumer profile for you, which is a faceless avatar that represents you for the sake of targetting you with suggestions. This avatar is constructed by consolidating these factors together:

Personal data

This category is quite broad. It consists of any personal information you submit to the app, such as age, gender, sex, where you live, social security number, pictures of yourself, IP address of the devices you use, and cookies saved on your browser.

Engagement data

Engagement is measured by your activity on the site, what you spend the most time looking or interacting with, messanger activity (text or other methods), and how the person reacts to advertisements.

Behavioral data

If things were not sketchy before, this is where things cross the line. People data mining your available information will be able to quantify your spending habits (repeat purchases, where you shop), which products you prefer based on that information, and most frightening of all, qualitative data. Qualitative web data is how you use you mouse (or eyes/fingers on a smart phone), which means your entire experience on these free to use social media apps are tracked.

By tracking your behavior on the internet, collecting your personal information, and being able to establish what device you are wusing and where you are using it, data miners are able to predict future behaviors.

Why does this matter?

Well, outside of having no privacy while using the internet that data can be used against you. It has become common place for HR departments to use that data to determine if you should or should not be hired. Hiring/recruitment departments seek third party data collectors for this available information to screen out potential new hires. Although it is common, here is a brief article focusing on the implications of hiring departments using this information:

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html

Another important aspect of having all of your information on the internet is that companies track your info and online habits in order to predict your future behaviors. This egregious abomination of an algorithim uses your own information against you by targetting you with ads specifically designed to put pressure on you when you are vulnerable. This article goes over how apps predict your future behaviors and then sell that information to companies that cater to the things you need/want:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanpettijohn/2019/09/03/of-course-your-phone-is-listening-to-you/?sh=594741316a3f

Society is addicted to free to use apps that track our information, and we have accepted that we pay for those free services with our privacy. We have become the prodcut sold to advertising agencies, and have opened ourselve up to social media audits before we get hired. There is no solution, and no that the genie is out of the bottle there is no going back to a private internet existence. I will let the Woz send this blog off:

When looking throught the Sask curriculum I found it incredibly odd that there really are not any class that focus on computers, the internet, or technology until grade 10. What makes that strange is that children in general are getting their first cell phone and access to the internet long before grade ten. According to Statista a large “majority of children have their first phone by the age 10-12 option”(O’Dea, 2019).

Outside of the lacking curriculum, there seems to be an undertone of implementing tech into the classroom. An example of this is outcome CR8.4 in the grade 8 english language arts curriculum, with this indicator

(b)	Demonstrate ability to navigate and process information when viewing websites, films, videos, and presentations.

Students begin learning how to browse the internet in elementry in grade 8, but their abiity to safely navigate through websites is a mere indicator in an english outcome.

Students may have digital access, via computers at school and cell phones (presumably), however there is no clear curriculum that teaches kids about the ramifications of the internet, how to avoid scams or <sexual predators>, and where the data they share on sites ends up.

In the future I plan on teaching in a highschool, but I have experience teaching in grade 5. I found the students I was working with relied on computers for almost every course in one way or another, and the teach had done an amazing job of introducing those kids to tech. I would plan on doing something similar.

In the grade 5 curriculum I would introduce digital citizenship as a part of the social studies curriculum, under the outcome Resources and Wealth. In indicator RW5.2

RW5.2 Hypothesize about economic changes that Canada may experience in the future.

This gives the class as a whole a chance to make predictions and have a more nuanced understanding of what the internet is, and what is cababilities are. The internet is here to stay, and teaching students about the potential of it earlier in their development will set them up for success.

Participating in the #SaskEdChat last week was eye opening. I have always avoided social media because I thought it posed more of a risk than anything. I was always afraid that something that I posted could be misconstrude and used against me later in life when applying for jobs or if I ever ended up in a position of public scrutiny.

That opinion changed during the #SaskEdChat because I realized that there are several potential benefits to networking on these sites, in addition to communicating with other like-minded individuals about ways to improve lessons or approaches in the workplace.

Katia has given us an opportunity to develop a new skill throughout the summer semester, and I choose to focus my time on learning the ins and outs of 3D printing so I could teach tech in highschools eventually. In addition, it has given me the perfect opportunity to video some of the successes and blunders during the early stages of this skill. I have created a YouTube channel where I am going to start posting those videos. Because the community is so niche, other beginners like myself can learn from my mistakes and I can use those videos in the future as a learning tool for students.

I have come around to the concept of social media being a professional tool.

Hello world, this is my first attempt at blogging. My name is Morgan Smerek. I am your average generic middle aged male, caught inbetween Gen X and millenials. Growing up our schools used floppy disks in Mac 1s until 7th grade, and then jumped to Mac books. This blew my mind, mostly because I grew up poor and didn’t have access to computers outside of school. In highschool everyone had the first Iphone and teachers were using SMART boards. Since then the world has completely changed, and the trend is to become more reliant on technology.

I have absolutely zero blogging experience, and quite frankly I hate social media. That being said, I have noticed that my career and hobbies would benefit from a presense on the internet. My instagram account has never been active because I always treated it like a forum and only subscribed to people I actually liked to be updated on. My handle on there is GenericWhiteDude. https://www.instagram.com/genericwhitedude/

I am an education student at the University of Regina, which is situated on Treaty 4 land. I am a returning student after previously graduating in 2019 with a degree in sociology and history. Currently I am a student athlete on the university rugby team, and a coach for other competitive rugby leagues around Saskatchewan.

I hope you find my Eportfolio interesting. I am a bit old fashioned and do not have any social media accounts to link you to, so if you wish to make contact with me my email is Smerek20@gmail.com.