Dear Esteemed VDMIS Members,

I hope 2017 has gotten off to a good start for you and you feel energized with new ideas and the courage to explore using new media. The Chair-Elect, Elke Stappert, and I hope the YouTube videos we coproduced last summer have given you the encouragement and direction you need to create your own videos or to assign your students manageable video projects.

I was reminded this week of the need to be cautious online when my 20-year-old niece’s computer was hacked and she was locked out while searching YouTube for language help in her Spanish class. As a college student, she has already had her identity stolen twice. I can’t help but wonder if all of her activity using social networking online has made her an easier target.

I, fortunately, have not yet had the frustration of dealing with malware infecting my computer, nor have I had my identity stolen, but this past year I have felt a sense of not being able to control my family’s privacy online. Even though I have been prudent about what I post and who I share pictures with on Facebook, this past year I’ve had friends (whom I intentionally only privately shared pictures with) repost my pictures on their sites without asking me. What I intended for a private audience was with good intentions posted for the public. I am now susceptible to the prying eyes of whoever is watching their online activity.

In this age of connecting via social media with friends down the street and across the globe, cultural differences are not only being bridged, but lines of prudent behavior are also being crossed. My former students and friends in Vietnam using Facebook don’t seem to observe the same caution in their posts as we do, because stories of online predators in the United States are not viewed over there. However, it’s not just my overseas friends reposting my private content; one of my American friends in her 70s also frequently reposts what I privately share. Rules about sharing digital content are not universal; there are generational differences as well as cultural differences that can impact digital rights management.

These experiences and observations have made me realize that as we search for digital content for our own work or assign multimedia projects to our students, we need to not only use sites with content that has intentionally been made public for recreation and is “fair use,” but we also need to have discussions about digital rights and the potential risks of posting personal information and work online. If we don’t make our international students aware of the ways digital content is used and abused, who will? I see this as an important life skill we can teach them as we help them learn the language to navigate cross-cultural relationships.

May you and your students be safe online this year.

Best wishes,

Julie Lopez

Julie Lopez has been an instructor at the University of Delaware English Language Institute (UD ELI) since August 2007 and has created and been teaching a course called English Though Viewing and Producing Films. She has also led teacher-training workshops on student video projects, created promotional videos, and coordinated a program helping students transition to the university. Her work, which includes sample projects for students, videos for language practice, and program videos, can be viewed on her YouTube channel and on the UD ELI YouTube channel.