Breaking Down the Four Walls of the Classroom: My adventures of Vlogging, reviewed.

I started my week by asking for the advice of friend who has an active vlogging account: Little Chunks of Ben. This was invaluable advice, including making sure you have a music background to keep the viewers engaged, planning the Vlog and generally a bit of encouragement to go for it! As well as learning a lot about Vlog’s this week, the discussions I have had with other members of the class have been invaluable. 

On a personal level, I really appreciated the support Catherine showed me by responding to my Vlog with her own: 

Our video discussions were based on cyber bullying. We had both looked at this topic as part of this week’s post. However Catherine discussed teachers being bullied online. Something often ignored, it was important to remember that the school has a duty of care for the teachers, the same way as they do for the pupils. Our discussion concluded with us suggesting the best way forward is training, and individuals like us, acting as ambassadors teaching individuals the affects their words have on the web!

Pippa and I discussed authenticity and scrutiny on the web: using the case of Justine Sacco as the basis for discussion, discussed in my Week 2 blog. I revisited the events of Justine Sacco’s story and came to question the influences that scaremongering from companies can have on individuals Twitter presence. Is it right that we should not post something through fear of losing a job- if it is authentic and represents our true feelings? What if individuals want to post a bad review of a hotel and this will impact them negatively- discussions I had with Jess were based around this question of “freedom of speech”. 

The discussion Jess and I had revealed the importance of analysing the language we use when displaying ourselves on the web. Using “muppets” and describing a place as a “rotten stinking hovel” is unprofessional, and therefore is not going to display the writer positively. Trip Advisor is a great platform for displaying your reviews on hotels, restaurants and other holiday activities, if these are done in a professional manner they are really useful for individuals looking to go on holiday. I use this website a lot do check out hotels before I go abroad, however due to the inconsistencies between individual people you have to learn to take a broad look at all the reviews and not focus on single reviews. Individuals should always be given the freedom of speech online; however we must remember the importance of doing this in a professional and presentable manner. 

This week’s discussions have greatly reflected the discussion had in Week 2. Since then I have learnt a huge amount about how we display ourselves online: looking at the ethics, along with the responsibility of this being down to the individual. We can train, inform and advise, but in the end the individual decides how they use the World Wide Web.