Day 5 Sites. And Cyberstupidity

Cybersmart was the topic last week. Ironic how quickly things change. Wednesday night -open evening at GBHS for all year 8 boys and their families. So I left my laptop on the desk in the library. It was open and casting to a screen upstairs. I stepped outside briefly to inspect health and safety standards at the sausage sizzle with Neri (another staff member) and left my laptop unattended and logged in. Neri, between bites of a sausage, asked ‘Bro, have you lost your phone SIM?’. Confused, I looked at his phone as he showed me an email that I had sent the entire staff while I was standing outside, ensuring the grease to bacteria ratios were correct on the BBQ. Turns out, someone had ‘pranked’ my emails and told the entire staff I had lost my SIM and could they send me their numbers. Some dismissed it as a hoax, others are sending concerned messages with numbers that may or may not be correct. Others are saying it’s Karma and making all sorts of off-colour suggestions that I can’t repeat here. I’m not even the least bit suspicious about Tim who was loitering nearby, blamed Eric and keeps worriedly asking about video surveillance. I trust Tim-he wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. (But come-on, Eric clearly wouldn’t be the culprit. He doesn’t even know how google docs work). Tim, interestingly, suggested as a 'payback' that I could get on the offender's laptop and send a whole lot of offensive emails from them to other people but on some kind of schedule so they would go out at random times. Pretty nasty trick Tim - I wouldn't, in any good conscience, be able to do this as you well know.

Perhaps unfairly, I have been accused of all sorts of dodgy shenanigans regarding computers. Obviously, I am innocent of the accusations but throw enough mud at someone… Our DP, once had an unfortunate ‘trick’ played on him. Someone who knew a thing or two about computers realised that you can change the default sounds a computer makes and went into Pete’s (the DP) computer and changed his sounds for some custom noises. And then, so the apocryphal story goes, the offender muted his computer so the crime was hidden for a time. Unfortunately, Pete found out what the noises were during a disciplinary meeting with a constantly truanting boy and his parents. He had, apparently, gone to print a copy of the boy’s attendance and when he pressed the print function his computer loudly announced “Hello, my name is Borat, I lika you I lika sex!” accompanied with some ethnic music. In a panic, embarrassed in front of a couple of parents and a student he had just reprimanded, Pete tried to shut things down. The computer then loudly played the sound of a man rhythmically grunting and panting along with the sound of a sheep intermittently baa-ing. It sounded like….Well, I guess it sounded like the man was carrying the sheep up a steep hill, grunting and panting with the exertion and the sheep was not interested in being carried.  Maybe. I’m not sure what else it could have been.

I heard about this from our systems manager, Malcolm who started sniggeringly calling me ‘the cyberfarmer’ and when I asked why, told me I was the chief suspect. Pete (the DP) commented on my email hack that it was the very definition of irony but I think his definition comes from that terrible Alanis Morrissette song-which has no actual irony -  rather than a dictionary. Anyway, don't do stuff like this.

Other things I have been falsely accused of include the time when someone put a folder called ‘dwarf porn’ on one of the Science teacher’s desktop (his name is also Peter), took a screenshot and then set that screenshot as a background after deleting all the files on the desktop. I knew nothing about this either or about when someone accessed that same teacher’s trademe account that he had left open and bought a large number of extremely risque items - the least offensive of which was a polka dotted g-string. It can’t have been me- I didn’t even know trademe had that stuff. I’m probably leaving out the worst details but I just can’t stomach that kind of stuff. I’d like to state right now, for those who don’t know me so well, that I’m the kind of guy that straightens his tie, doesn’t use bad language and ensures that everyone is putting in %100 effort - not the kind of guy that resorts to highly unprofessional nonsense such as I have described. Clearly, none of this stuff is the least bit funny or even mildly amusing and it needs to stop. I'm obviously some sort of target for this nonsense -I've no idea why but assume it's because I'm such a straight shooter, get things done without the mucking around type guy.

Berated by Robbie on my lack of ‘cybersmarts’, I had to reluctantly concede he was right- there are people out there capable of doing all sorts of terrible and unprofessional things that I wouldn’t have either the inclination or imagination for and that best practice is to lock your screen if you are away from your computer. Also, pull your socks up,tuck in your shirt and be cybersmart not cyberpranked. Actually, if you put cyber in front of lots of words it makes it sound hightech and brainy. My cyberstudents are completing cyberassignments using various cybertools. Don’t overdo it though, you’ll sound cyberpretentious.

First on the agenda today after a whip around about what was working.
Presentation of a slideshow by a bloke called Gerhard from Auckland who talked about sharing while going through the slides. He was justifying why blogger is used (even after ten years - which is nearly an eternity in internet years which are worse than dog years) and described it as the Toyota Corolla of blogging in that it is a fairly safe way to learn how to share online. Side note: my first car was a 1981 Toyota Corolla and it was less than reliable. Constantly leaking carbon monoxide into the interior of the car, I had to drive around with the windows open all the time which could get super uncomfortable. It would often stall at a give-way and not start up again. My experience with Corollas are certainly not all positive.  Gerhard emphasised being thoughtful, helpful and positive in terms of blog comments. I'm sure Tim will take this to heart. Gerhard didn’t mention shitposting or trolling once - probably a good choice.

Next up was a deep dive into class sites. We tore into some sites with enthusiasm. In a positive, helpful and thoughtful way, we deconstructed the first site which was cluttered, busy and way too dark - and not in a cool way either. On the positive side, the teacher was doing a film study on Django Unchained.  Other sites we looked at were better; colourful, less cluttered and simpler to navigate.

Looking at our own sites, we had to fill in a google form assessment that looked at the form and function of our own sites. I’m hoping for some positive comments, but to be fair, my planning procedure is usually ‘Load, Fire, Aim’. And that’s how it looks.

Goal setting - apparently ‘make it to lunch' is not a proper goal so I decided to try and touch up my media site with some better looking buttons as the buttons I’ve got are fugly. Maria asked whether fugly meant ‘funny and ugly’ and I agreed, that’s exactly what fugly is. I mucked around with remove bg and made some editing adaptions and now my media site has the heads of iconic villains as buttons. Clicking on Darth Vader’s face takes you to ‘Advertising’, while the Night King from Game of Thrones takes you to ‘Camera angles and shots’. As an aside, I was pretty disappointed with that particular villain’s demise. Like the Y2K bug, he didn’t have the catastrophic effect that he was supposed to. Anyway my site is slightly less funny and ugly. You might be thinking Hmmm - but you should have seen it before.

Here are my buttons: (Also don't read the text - some of that stuff was made up when I was bored)