This week’s lesson was very informative. I feel that I learned a lot about my digital footprint and about net neutrality. After reading this week’s articles and watching the videos, I can honestly say that I have learned a lot and I think it has shed some light on a few things for me. For example, the concept called filter bubbles by Eli Pariser, is something I could see happening with my own digital experiences. I would notice the more I would search items on the internet, those items would appear as ads on my feed in Facebook. I also noticed that when I would be talking about certain things, all of a sudden it would also appear in my Facebook feed. This is crazy to even think about, and a little scary.
I also learned the concept of net neutrality, which is creating a neutral internet. I can see the importance of having net neutrality and why the bigger corporations want control and not have the regulations that are in place. The corporations such as Comcast and AT&T want control over what consumers see and they also want the option to charge more for faster internet. This is not good for us, schools or the smaller corporations.
For us, it means that they would have control over what appears in our searches, or it would mean that if we were to search something that the providers were not for, they could simply block it from us.
For smaller corporations it means that they do not even get a chance to grow. There would be no way that the smaller corporations could keep up financially with the bigger corporations. I could see how this would be walking a fine line of becoming a monopoly in our society.
Schools want an even playing field and our students deserve this. Net neutrality helps our schools accomplish this. Without net neutrality our students would suffer greatly. Long (2015) states in her article, What Net Neutrality means for our Students and Educators, that without net neutrality, service providers can charge higher prices for larger bandwidths, which would mean schools that are already struggling with finances would not be able to afford the higher cost which means internet speeds would be way slower than the average schools. It also means that the providers have the option to sensor material from students. If a student was wanting to research a topic that the providers did not necessarily agree with, the provider could either make the response time a lot slower or they could block the material and only provide the student with more of a one sided perspective. As Long (2015) put it, this is an infringement on our First Amendment, Freedom of Speech. Most of the time, to the untrained eye, people do not even realize that certain content is being blocked, since this happens behind the scenes. No one should have the power over us to control what information we receive.
One of the most interesting, but also scary, thing I discovered is that net neutrality has different rules for mobile devices. It is almost like rules do not apply to mobile devices, which honestly I do not understand why. This part left me with more questions than answers. I invite you to read the article, An Introduction to Net Neutrality to learn more about this topic.
My Journey with Digital Learning and Leading 