Internet Communities

This week I want to discuss the internet phenomemon Anonymous. Thanks to my husband for helping me better understand this group! Where does the name come from? What do they stand for?

This group started on 4Chan, an image message board where each new post needs an image, so no one posts with an actual username. This allows users to be freer with what they say and show their true feelings. In other message boards comments are logged forever. In 4Chan posts are deleted so it gives everyone more incentive to speak their mind without having to fear reprecussion. There is a group of people on 4chan that call themselves anonymous which actually started out as a meme. Because of the anonymity users joked about anonymous being an actual person. The anonymous image is of a guy in a suit with a question mark in place of a head. There is no leader in this organization and they are just a blob that choose to do different things on the internet. The users know about computers so they can use those talents for their means. If they protest in public the V for Vendetta mask is worn.

The group is most well known for its stand against scientology and being strong defenders of Julian Assange, the editor in chief of Wikileaks. For more information on anonymous vs scientology check out whyweprotest.net. During the Wikileaks situation, anonymous launched attacks known as DDoS or a Distributed Denial of Service attack against paypal, mastercard, and Visa websites because these sites stopped any money from being transferred to the wikileaks account.

So, clearly this is a strong internet community... stronger bonds then I have even seen in a school classroom. How can we get our students involved in perhaps more positive internet communities?

Try Science for Citizens (http://scienceforcitizens.net/)where you can look for a science project or research that you or your classes could contribute to. There are projects all over so you could have your contribute to a local project. Or, there are projects that can be done virtually like the Sound Around You Project where students collect sound recordings on their mobile phones and submit. There are member blogs on this site so you could require students to post blog updates on the project the class is working on.

Another site, Jumo has the same idea where you can search for the cause and then find ways to contribute. Charity Water has many projects that students and teachers can choose from. The only downside to this site is to login users must have a Facebook account which many schools block.

I believe pulling together this type of blended environment would solidify the bonds between the students and the internet community in a positive way! What types of internet communities are you involved in? What communities are your students involved in... do you even know? Find out and share here!

I used wikipedia.com, BBC News, softpedia.com and cnn.com for my research.