Bringing It All Together

Part I: Nine Themes of digital citizenship

Match the following themes of digital citizenship with the statements below.

* Digital Access | * Digital Law | * Digital Commerce | * Digital Rights and Responsibility | * Digital Communication | * Digital Health and Wellness | * Digital Literacy | * Digital Security | * Digital Etiquette | |

1. You setup a new event on ical to remind you to change your password every three months. Digital Security

2. Various restaurants and coffee shops are now offering free Wi-Fi (wireless Internet connection). Digital Access

3. You respond to an email with ALL CAPS. Digital Etiquette

4. You purchase a used gaming system and find that the previous owner’s account information has not been deleted. You go into the online store and start making purchases with their account information. Digital Law

5. You watch Lynda videos to learn how to use photoshop. Digital Literacy

6. You ask your boss for a standing desk so that you don’t have to sit down at work. Digital Health and Wellness

7. You post on a discussion board asking friends to vote for you in an online music contest. Digital Communication

8. Adding items to your wish list on Amazon that you share with your friends and family. Digital Commerce

9. You sign a petition to support the revision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that would restrict police from reviewing private emails without a warrant. Digital Rights and Responsibilities
Part II: Digital Citizenship Compass

Not comfortable with this
Not comfortable with this
Worth a shot if I don’t get in trouble
Worth a shot if I don’t get in trouble
Maybe/
Maybe Not
Maybe/
Maybe Not
Could be right with a few changes
Could be right with a few changes
Could be different for each person
Could be different for each person
Doesn’t Bother Me
Doesn’t Bother Me

Using the Digital Citizenship compass, identify how you feel about each statement on the following pages and provide sound reasoning, why you feel this way based on the materials learned this month.

1. Geoff really wants to watch a movie on a book that he just read. He can’t find the movie on Netflix, Hulu, or any other paid streaming service. He can find the movie available for purchase, but it is out of his budget. He searches for it online and finds a site where he can download it illegally and decides to do so.

To be honest, at one point I would say “worth a shot if I don’t get in trouble”: That is horrible, I know. I am not in the habit of downloading illegally, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t done this at least once. However, I have learned that this is practicing bad digital citizenship so I might think twice before doing this type of thing again. When it comes to Geoff, he would be taking away profit from the people who own the rights to the movie. He would be on the illegal end of digital commerce.

2. Brenda finds a thumb drive on the floor at her local library. She decides that while no one is looking, she will inert it into her laptop to see what files are on it. She discovers that it belongs to another student in her class, and that they have been working on the same assignment she was researching in the library. Brenda decides to keep the thumb drive and pass it off as her own.

Wrong: I believe this is totally wrong because not only is she practicing bad digital citizenship by breaking digital law, she is also going against the academic honor code by plagiarizing.

3. While working on a project that requires you to use only photos or film footage that you took yourself, you realize that you forgot to take one of the shots (while you were on location) a week ago. You don’t have time to drive two hours to take more footage but you did find some footage online that will work perfectly. You decide to use this extra footage and pass it off as your own.

Wrong: This too is wrong because I would be breaking digital law. I am using someone else’s work without giving them the proper credit. I am also breaking the academic honor code because I am submitting work that is not totally my own.

4. Your teacher assigns you to work with a group of students that you don’t like and you are not happy about it. You ignore your members’ request for contact, because you have decided not to work on the assignment with them. Just before the assignment is due, you send and email to your members; you claim that none of them got in touch with you, and then forward that email to your teacher.

Not comfortable with this: I feel in this scenario that digital communication is being misused. Not only am I not communicating with my classmates, but I am being deceitful and using an email to mislead my teacher about what has been going on.

5. While sitting in class, you decide to take some pictures of your teacher (without your teacher’s knowledge or permission). You then edit the pictures and post them on Twitter and Instagram.

Wrong: I believe this is wrong due to the fact that it is going against the teacher’s digital rights. I would be invading her personal privacy by taking pictures without her knowledge and violating her digital privacy by posting them online.

6. Randy doesn’t have a lot of money but really wants to watch a movie that is on Netflix. He knows that you have an account and asks for your username and password.

I am in between “Doesn’t bother me” and “Maybe/Maybe not” on this scenario: In reality I have, with permission, used someone’s account on several occasions to watch streaming videos. It really depends on if you trust Randy or not and also how well you know him. This would not really bother me if I knew Randy well enough to trust him with me information. If I did not trust him it would be “maybe/maybe not”. However I probably would still let him use my account but would give him a timeframe to watch the video, and then to protect my digital security, I would change my account information after he was done.

7. A student has forgotten about an assignment that is due, and then realizes that it is due before midnight that same day. He remembers that a friend offered to give him all of her work from class--since they took it a month ago—but with a different instructor. The student decides to take his friend up on the offer.

In this scenario, I guess I could say it “could be different for each person”: Some people may have no problem letting someone use their hard earned work as their own. I, on the other hand, would not be comfortable with this. This is wrong on so many levels and goes back to going against digital law and the academic honor code.

Part III: As a digital citizen, what would you do?

Answer the questions in the scenarios below based on your ideas of digital citizen.

1. You find a collection of rare and expensive video games on Craigslist—that you would really enjoy playing. However, the price seems too good to be true. The ebay ad contains several photos of the seller’s address. What steps would you take to ensure the authenticity of the offer?

Knowing that in digital commerce there are legitimate sellers, and sellers that are not so legitimate, I would look up the seller on ebay and research his seller status. His status would tell me the percentage of successful sales transactions he has made. I would also read his feedback and customer reviews to see if there are complaints, and what they pertain to. If it can be confirmed that he is a good seller then I may purchase the games. I could also use the photos that he posted and search to see if the photos belong to him or if they are stock photos. This has the potential to let me know if he is actually in possession of the video games.

2. You have been offered a job as an art curator for a local website. The website contains several photos that need geotagging to update the date and location information (for each photo). You know a few of the locations because you’ve visited them personally, but how would you go about finding information for the locations that you have never visited.

For this situation, I would find the Image url and copy & paste it into a geotag database. When the location information is revealed, if it is a photo that has a physical address, I would paste the information into a search database (Google or Bing) and compare. If it is a photo of a site without a physical address but has geographic coordinates, I would paste that information into a GPS database to find out the general location.

3. You take on a freelance job to clean up and streamline a computer for a colleague. As you begin the project, you notice that this person may not be digitally native/fluent with computers. The computer that your colleague wishes for you to work on contains poor file management—exposing financial and personal records. In addition, private photos are easily accessible. What is your responsibility to your colleague and her information?

My responsibility would be to advise her of the problems and would make sure she understood the dangers that could occur if her information was left in that condition. It would also be my responsibility to make sure that she got the software needed to protect her records and photos.

4. While playing your favorite online game, another player initiates a chat with you and claims to be selling his guild for 100 pieces. You know that selling guilds goes against the community rules, so that it would be considered an unprotected transaction. However, it’s a level 25 guild, and you would really like to be guildmaster! Would you take the chance? What tools/technologies and steps could you take before making your decision?

I would search the game site for any rules pertaining to this particular matter. I would then read over the consequences I might face should I decide to buy his guild. I would also consider how he might be affected as well.

5. You have decided that you want to create an online community for people who love the same type of food that you love. How and where would you go about setting up that community? How would you recruit and validate members?

I would go to a site that would help me to create an online community and use the digital tools that are available to me. To recruit, I would advertise my site on different social media websites that would allow me that privilege.

6. A friend of yours created an online dating profile and claims to have found the “love of his life.” They have been dating online for almost a year but have never met in person. You are concerned that the person your friend met online might be a “catfish” or someone who has created a fake online profile. How could you prove this possibility to your friend?

After doing some research of my own, I would share with him my concerns. Next, I would invite him to look over the information I gathered, which would include putting any posted pictures in a photo recognition database to cross-reference. This would help me prove that the person who made the account is not the person in the picture. If I am lucky the picture could also help with a false location claim through geotag.