An Overview
This Post Has Been Censored (for our protection) is a curriculum web meant to introduce students to the worrying proliferation of web censorship. In particular, this curriculum web means to bring to light the many threats to Internet freedom that currently exist, as well as to teach students how to protect themselves and their information online. Though many of these students do not yet realize it, everything they do online can be and increasingly is tracked, and information shared either in jest or a moment of temporary bad judgment can often have severe consequences. On the other hand, social media tools represent an incredible opportunity for people of similar interests and dissimilar backgrounds to come together and form new social units. The Internet, and more specifically, digital social media, thus represents a double edged sword, representing both an opportunity for growth and exploration as well as an opportunity to cause oneself and others great harm.
Students will complete six “missions” and a final project which will not only educate them on the importance of Internet freedom, but also make them aware of the vast number of forces vying for control of the information shared thereon. These missions are shaped so as to require the use of the Internet for completion, intrinsically bestowing in the student an appreciation for a free and open Internet.
The final goal of this curriculum web is to leave the students not only with an increased appreciation of the Internet as a social force, and for the inherent risks therein, but with the knowledge that the Internet could be collapsed and regulated just as quickly as it initially diversified and proliferated.
Students will complete six “missions” and a final project which will not only educate them on the importance of Internet freedom, but also make them aware of the vast number of forces vying for control of the information shared thereon. These missions are shaped so as to require the use of the Internet for completion, intrinsically bestowing in the student an appreciation for a free and open Internet.
The final goal of this curriculum web is to leave the students not only with an increased appreciation of the Internet as a social force, and for the inherent risks therein, but with the knowledge that the Internet could be collapsed and regulated just as quickly as it initially diversified and proliferated.