Humans as Bullies in the Cyberworld

Wow...the chick in the car at the bottom of this post is....well, CREEPY!!!! I did not have any pictures of myself where I was not smiling (as the Gizmo site suggested), but I created an avatar anyway...holy cow I am creeped out!!!! Those are my eyes, but nothing else is me! And I have auburn hair, so I thought how funny would it be to be a blond in this virtual world...LOL, this is SOOO funny to me! Anyway, how to use avatars in the classroom…My students LOOOOVE Poptropica. They create from scratch players to use for different computer games. They have to remember passwords and codes, and they chat constantly about who beat what level. I would love to see if they could create an avatar of themselves to play in Poptropica (if that is even possible!) They love playing this computer game, but how much more would they love it if THEY were the characters passing the different levels?! My charter school just purchased a mobile cart of 10 laptops to be used in the classroom. We have a project to this week about our field trip to the zoo last Wednesday (right before MEA break…whoop, whoop…even though I spent 10 hours in school on Thursday and 9.5 hours Friday, so what break?!), but if the research projects get completed, I would love to look into my students making avatars for their computer games. I will have to see how this week goes…

I chose the “Interacting with Computers” to read for the second part of this week’s assignment. First off, Aaron Doering is AWESOME! He was my professor when I took Intro to Technology back when I was in school to be a teacher. Not only did I learn so much from him and become more comfortable with my technology skills, Aaron helped me with a slide show I had to create for the U of M Swim team. When I was in Aaron’s class, I was a senior on the Swim Team at the U. I was also captain and my coach asked me to create our end of the year slide show. (Just a few tid bits on that, past years had not turned out that well and I had 35 teammates giving me 100’s of pics and song requests. Yes, I am not that old, but this slide show was created before all the new age with albums online and programs designed to make slide shows a breeze!) Anyway, I mentioned to Aaron that I had this HUGE project to do for my team and he offered to help. With his assistance, that end of the year slide show turned out to be the best one to date. Everyone…coaches and parents included, asked me for a copy of the slide show, and that had NEVER happened before. Making copied of the DVD slide show was another project in itself…and Aaron was there to help again. Anyway, Aaron is GREAT and it was awesome to read about his project for this week’s assignment!

OK, back to this week’s assignment…as I was reading this article, I kept writing questions in the margins… “Did the kids know their convos were being logged?” “How is Joan responding to this abuse?” “Holy cow…did middle schoolers really just say that?!” As I continued to read, some of my questions were answered, but not all of them.

Towards the end of this article, the question was presented, what if the students were told that their teacher was able to see how they were using the Avatar? I think that would have made a world of difference, because now they are being held accountable. But then how real would this study have been??? I think when there is interaction with computers, the loss of the human factor results in people dropping their guard and acting more brashly than normal. Without a human to fire back at you, I think more people are willing to be the bully or harass because no one is going to harass back. But is that really their true colors and they are just putting on a front when they actually have to deal with other humans??? Kind of the chicken or the egg question? Which causes what? The lack of human contact brings out the worst in us, or are we set up that way and this technology environment just helps it shine through?!?! Food for thought if anyone has comments on that one.

Also, at the end of the article, there were notes about how to change how Joan responded to the mis-use of her helping students. I think comments to get kids back on track might work, but I also think if a person wants to “bully” a non-human trapped inside of a computer, I think he/she is going to bully regardless if the non-human is asking the student to get back on track. Furthermore, I think having Joan ask the student to get back on track it only going to make the situation worse…get them more fired up to keep the harassment and bullying going. But what do I know, and maybe not getting a rise out of Joan will squash the issue and the student will get back on track.

On page 297 of this article when the comments of Students A-J were being noted, I actually wrote in the margins… “WOW!!!!!!” My jaw dropped and I was shocked that middle schoolers would be using this language, and more shocking…using this language WHILE IN SCHOOL!!!!!! I’m not saying that I’m a saint, but still, I was raised with morals and values and knowing the difference between wrong and right. What the heck were these kids thinking?!?! I’m a female so I have never asked another female the questions that Students A-J did, but at the same time, I have never been asked those questions by people in my life. Yes, I go out to the bars and yes, I know how to have a fun time, but I do so not at the expense of another person. I also surround myself with people with similar values…yes we can get rowdy, but were not going to ask a passerby, “Do you suck bug nuts?” I still can not believe that a middle school would ask that same question when it is part of an assignment…regardless if he/she did or did not know that the teacher could read the questions posted. I know that Thom can read our blogs, he told us he could at the beginning of this class. You better believe I would never ask my blog buddies what color undies they are wearing, but I certainly would not stray from the course work during our chats knowing that Thom can read all that we type!

I do find this study to be very interesting, and the questions it poses. Would there be similar sexual questions if Joan was a male character? Would it help to have a gender neutral person answering questions, or would that just stir up the students to see who could find out the sexuality of the CPA first to be able to share the answers with others? Would the outcome be different if the students were told upfront that their activity online was being recorded…or would that just mask their true colors? I guess the only way to get answers to these questions is to have more studies on this subject and change one variable at a time. Aaron Doering is an awesome professor (no offense Thom!) and I nominate Aaron to conduct more studies and let us know what he finds out!