I opened my bedroom door, brisk, cold air hit my face. I walked in and looked around, remembering the days where the walls were blank. Where the room was empty, void of life and memories.

My bed was neatly made up, with the books I’ve recently and previously bought. I sat on it and picked up my computer, the late birthday from my mother. It was identical to the one she has. I opened it and started to watch some videos on Youtube. After watching hours of Youtube videos, I got up from my bed and looked at my posters, posters I’ve bought from Amazon that resembled for love for anime and meaningful quotes.

I walked over to my dresser. My mother had a friend to built and paint it. It was a rich blue color and was filled with my clothes. The dresser also had some more of my books on top of it and a writing certificate on the wall. I reached over and grabbed a book. I walked over to my bed and started to read.

Slide Two: The internet changed communication by allowing people to text and interact with each other without either one knowing who the person they’re talking too is. When you go online, you can start a chat with someone. Their username could be their real name or a variation of their name, favorite food, favorite cartoon, everything they want. You don’t know who you’re talking too or they’re from, that’s how the internet changed communication.

Slide Three : When you post a picture online on social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook, someone can immediately take a screenshot, save, or download your comments or pictures. That’s immediacy. For example, let’s say  I posted a picture of me and my sisters on Instagram or posted a really nasty comment and deleted it afterward. The comment and picture are still on the Internet, someone who took a screenshot of the comment or downloaded the photo, can repost it. It’s that quick.

Slide Five: Anything you post online stays online. It’s permanent. Even if you delete it, there’s some kind of variation of your picture, blog, comment, etc. on the internet. That’s permanence. Anything you put online stays online even if you thought it was gone. For example, if you post an article or have a blog and deleted it somehow. It’s still there. Nothing really gets deleted off the internet, someone can recreate your article or blog post. It’s not gone.

Slide Four: Like I said with immediacy, once you post something online, it spreads fast. It can go in anyone’s hands and anyone would go post it and claim it as theirs. Lack of control pretty much explains itself. The lack of ownership on anything you’ve posted online. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. For example, you immediately post a picture of yourself on Instagram. Even though you took the picture and you posted it first, you still lost control of it. Now everyone can save or download your picture and use it for themselves.  

You can manage your reputation online by not feeding trolls. If you see someone saying mean things about you and spamming your profile or email, either report them or block them. Replying back to them will just give ammunition to damage your reputation and can post your comments online. Showing the people they follow that you’re a bully even if they’re the one shaming you. Another way could be positive and nice online. Don’t post any negative or insulting comments online.

Slide Seven: The Internet has rules somewhat but does seem as if they can do anything you want on there. Websites and apps do have rules, rules people follow and obey by. But the Internet as a whole does have rules

Slide Eight: Cyberbullying is  harassing and bullying someone online, it can be unintentional or intentional.

Slide Nine:

• Shaming

• Trolling

Slide Ten: For victims of cyberbullying, you would say try to get some help. First block or report this person. Don’t engage in anything conversation with them and don’t have your friends talk to them too. The bully would now be able to pick on you and your friends. If blocking and reporting them didn’t work, tell your parents. If your parents decided to take legal action, gather evidence of them bullying you. Screenshot their messages and provide it to the court. Evidence can help you.

For bullies, my advice would be to think before you post. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you respond if someone was harassing you online? Why exactly are you posting negative comments and getting into arguments with them and leads to physical threats? Depending on which state you’re in, you could go to jail for online harassment. It is worth it?

For bystanders, I would say don’t bully the bully. Telling the bully off would just anger them more and now you’re going to be bullied too. Private message the victim and comfort them. Tell them how special they are and not to listen to the bully’s threat.

Slide 11: Your Top 5 tips for using the Internet

1. Think before you post

2. The Internet is a privilege, not a right

3. Try to put yourselves in other’s shoes, you don’t know them. You don’t know what they’re going through.

4. Respect the Internet and the contents within

5. Life doesn’t revolve around the Internet. Try taking short breaks from it to go outside or read a book.  

Creativity while learning to me means there’s an opportunity to show what you’ve learned in something that’s completely different and is made by you. Everyone is creative and learns things in a multiple of ways. Some schools have a normal way of students putting their thoughts and learning into something. For instance, my old school had students take written benchmarks and tests. But someone didn’t think that way, they have something different to express their understanding for their classes. For me, I can take notes and study them, it’s better for me to write something down and look back to it. But for someone else, they like to look at the board and memorize and don’t write down anything at all. Creativity while learning is a way to showcase people’s different and unique ways of learning without anyone telling them they have to learn it in the same way as everything else. I feel that students should be able to express themselves through their school and have time to put down their thoughts and questions. Their different ways of learning should be incorporated into the way they complete work or show their understanding of the work. Like in math where there are different ways of solving a problem. Students are different. They have different ways of learning. You can’t make everyone learn something the same way because it’s how most people learn or it’s considered the ‘easiest’ way because sometimes it’s not. Some students may get it, some students won’t. It’s just the way they learn.

The North Dakota pipeline movement have been shaking social media these past few months. And their impact on sites such as Facebook are spreading throughout the world. This article states how people are somewhat ‘checking in’ on Facebook to show that they’re going to Standing Rock, ND to protest against the pipeline. There was a post on Facebook, saying that the sheriff department checks on Facebook to see how many people are going to protest and who exactly are they.  A post came in, though the article doesn’t state the identity of the person who posted it. Many people have ‘checked in’ on Facebook, claiming that they are protesting on the North Dakota pipelines. It’s to trick the police and try to find a way to help the protesters of the pipeline.

Though I don’t have the identity of the one individual who posted the comment but their actions did help the protesters, in a way. People were ‘participating’ through the screen of their phone or laptops. They had an impact on the pipeline protest, finding a way to help the people and try to confuse the police but they didn’t have that big of a effect. On the article, say of the actual protesters said that it would have been nice if the people who claimed they were at Standing Rock, North Dakota could actually be there. Their participation on the protest didn’t really have as much as a positive effect as they were suppose it. Instead they might have just confused and annoyed the police. Plus, the article says that the sheriff department actually doesn’t monitor Facebook feeds or comments about people protesting the North Dakota pipeline. They say it’s completely false.

Immediacy plays into this. Everyone saw the post and since they felt bad for the people protesting the pipeline being arrested and they’re not able to help them, they decided to believe into this ‘check in’ on Facebook and participate in that. The post has an positive impact on the people in Facebook. It rallied some up to post that they were going to North Dakota to protest against the pipeline and as more people were posting, it eventually had articles on it and gaining some popularity. Maybe teenagers and students on Facebook see this posts and think to try to do something for the community. My advice would be next time, instead of just saying something on the Internet, go and try to make a positive impact on your own. If you can’t physically go, maybe donate and speak out for the cause. Try to inform everybody about it and how it’s bad for people who are protesting against it and are being arrested for something they believe in.

I think the motives of this whole ‘check in’ thing was good. They had good intentions but if they really wanted to play a role in this, try to actually go to North Dakota and participate in the protests. The post was claimed to be false in information and just confused the department. They did have some form of support for the protesters of the North Dakota pipeline but one of them did say, “It would have nice to have those 550,000 people really here.”