The Internet, a tool for education or a weapon for destruction?

By: Christopher Robison

My name is Christopher Robison and I am a sophomore currently enrolled in Stockton University. I am majoring in computer science with a concentration in software development. I have chosen this class to discover ways to market myself and to fulfill some requirements towards my bachelors degree. I would like to start by saying that the first class was a very interesting and new way of teaching that I have never encountered before. I mean come on, blogging for class is unheard of. We also talked about how to use multiple social media applications to market yourself and how to connect with people in your specific career path. After leaving the first class I immediately read the first chapter of the book LOL...OMG and learned that your online reputation sticks with you for the rest of your life. The internet can be a helping hand or an iron fist all depending on how you use it.

The internet is a relatively new means of connection with the world and all of its inhabitants and yet, we rely on it to an extreme extent. Without the internet how would we know that male seahorses give birth, or that the the Mesozoic era of the earth was roughly 187 years long. With the internet, the worlds vast knowledge is at our fingertips.  The internet is an inspiration for all, in fact it is what inspired me to write this blog. Now with all of the great features given to you by the internet what would could possibly go wrong?

For starters, the internet has introduced a new type of bullying called 'Cyber-bullying'. If you don't already know what this is I would highly recommend checking out this link to get a better background of the topic and to help raise awareness. Basically, cyber-bullying is a form of bullying through any digital device promoting negative or harmful content towards another person. With the internet being so accessible, anyone could become an anonymous cyberbully at any moment. Now with this said, that does not mean that the internet has become the bullies playground. All great technological advances are bound to have some negative effects thereafter and all we can do is try to lessen the impact of these negatives by creating sites like stopbullying.gov.

Now that we've gotten the negative impacts out of the way we can move on to the boundless positives of the internet, one of which being the capability of social media marketing. Yes you heard me right, people nowadays are able to market themselves in the form of social media. One of the more popular applications used for such marketing is none other than Twitter. An example can be seen in an article titled "Developing a Personal Learning Network" by Ellen Lague where she talks about how she now uses twitter to engage with other educators in conversations and debates. Another example is on a blog titled "100 Perfect Twitter Accounts for Teachers" that explains how easy teachers can connect to twitter and start communicating with other educators. Finally, if you want to learn how to start getting more followers on twitter, check out the Geekless Tech blog.