Reflecting on the digital past

With the birth of the online world, many have noted the changes that have occurred in daily lives yet many fail to acknowledge the power the cyberspace has in our lives. Despite this technology is a relatively new concept, we have all grown accustomed to all the automation and virtualization of tasks that were at one point considered irreplaceable in the real world. Throughout my learning experience within this unit, it became more evident to me that there is always another perspective that can be achieved when discussing the cyberspace and it can be enlightening and is something that is worth acknowledgment.

Before beginning this unit as part of my Cyber Security and Behaviour degree, I approached the cyberspace in a different manner and used it in different ways. As someone who mostly used the online world for basic communication, entertainment and research, the concept of using the internet to publish blogs and try to market a movement were known but not concepts I was used to. As someone who has a history of writing for personal enjoyment rather than sharing, it was at first an uncomfortable yet necessary experience to learn to share my work in an online setting. The different topics within this unit were ones that were interesting and most relevant towards my learning and understanding for my degree. By studying this new perspective, I was able to learn more about people who do these activities in their day to day life and as a result, I can now say I have gained a larger understanding of the online world and its population.

With the use of blogs, I along with other unit students have been introduced into online journalism and with topics such as surveillance and freedom of speech. While these are commonly discussed issues in current journalism, I cannot say I find studying this educational personally due to me already having some experience with the topic and it is what inspired me to study cybersecurity. As someone who admires cyber security being used for national defense, some of the topics would feel as if they are targeting the government rather than providing a constructive solution or insight.

In order for this unit to improve and use its full potential, it is in my notion that some diversification of the learning activities could provide better insight and illustrate other sides of the internet while keeping the unit interesting and dynamic. I do not believe all topics within the unit should be changed due to relevancy since the topic of surveillance allowed for an expansion into the insight of cyber security and was relevant for cybersecurity students. Despite this, I believe that the use of blogging was effective due to the format of a blog communicating the nature of the internet more effectively than a classic university essay ever could.

To conclude, I do believe this has the potential to become an interesting unit if a number of changes were to be implemented. The main weaknesses of this unit were the type of learning tasks provided and the area of study. The push to adapt to group work and online communication was in my notion the most useful and relevant knowledge a student in this unit could receive due to it directly involving us into the lifestyle of the cyber world and provided us with the experience of using the internet to it’s fullest extent. By using blogs and a more casual format the unit managed to communicate the casual nature of the internet more effectively than any essay tasks could and the permitted use of hyperlinks allowed us to utilize a more efficient method to reference our research.

Related posts:

Blockchain !! No matter where you go, the tech circles and media houses are agog with stories about how Blockchain technology will have a profound impact on different aspects of mankind — how…

On October 11th and 12th, thanks to a sponsorship from Google, I was able to attend the inaugural SingularityU Canada Summit in Toronto. As a student living in the 21st century, many of these…

My husband and I enjoyed our date night together at Starved Rock National Park in Illinois. We got a later start than we wanted. It was dark by the time we arrived, but the lodge was full of laughter…