The Great Hack is a netlike documentary movie, that discuss a very important topic that people are becoming more aware of the past few years. The main idea of the film , is to show people how big organizations and powerful people can use your private and personal data without you consent against you. The movie analysis the Cambridge Analytica case and how it symbolizes the dark side of social media. The movie, helps people understand how our data can be collected and used behind our backs because we agree on terms on almost every website and social media account without bothering to read them.

This movie plus the article i read in my Digital pathway 0.1, made me realize even more the importance of such problem and how people need to be aware and start to think twice before sharing any personal data or even accepting any terms or conditions.

The semester has come to an end and so this course. AT the last day of registration, i couldn’t find any major course to take since all was full so i decided to take a global course .So when i first registered the course, i thought to myself that this will be another boring core course, where you go to class , stay the whole hour and fifteen minutes looking at the clock wondering when will this be over. BUT, that was not close to what actually happened.

From the first day of the semester, i remember sitting next to Dr.Maha throughout the whole class and remember how friendly and casual she was, it felt more like getting to know a new friend rather than professor so i thought to myself that this will be the most interesting and fun course in my semester. I have learned so many new and interesting things throughout the course though our assignments, class discussions , articles i have read and ted talks i have watched and reflected upon.

Firstly, I have learned and discovered new things about myself based on the different tasks we did but the one i believe have enlightened me the most about myself was the Me and bias assignment. I remember, while going through the requirements of the assignment i found on the questions was if there was any bias that happened against you so i remember thinking about the bias that i face a lot due to the mindset of our society and whether i should talk about it and open up or no. Then, while doing the assignment , when i had to answer this question i found myself without hesitation or even thinking twice talking about my parents divorce and not only that but also i decided not to make the post private. This made me realize, that i’m actually more open to talk about and mention the topic to the people around me even if i don’t know them well enough , which was a very important realization that i needed to know. Secondly, after playing the Narrative games and reflecting upon them, it made me realize that i need to be able to put myself in others’s people positions, before judging or even taking their problems lightly. We all have problems in our lives, some are big and some are small but still a problem is a problem even you think its not a big deal because its not you place to judge. This activity made me think that putting myself in someones’s else shoes and trying to understand their issues while helping them, is crucial because no one is better than the other it’s only a matter of a perspective that we build. I would defeintly use such important lesson in my social life because it will make a better and more sympathetic person toward others.

Furthermore, an assignment that will definitely help me in my academic life is the article for Time Management . I have always had a problem with time management in general, like i always think i that i still have time to finish an assignment until there are like 2 hours left for the deadline and I’m panicking while finishing the assignment, which i usually finish on time but still the hassle is never worth it. The article helped me by giving some ideas and tips about how i should manage my time according to my tasks and i tired some of them specially in the finals week and it was very helpful. Last but not least ,is an assignment that helped me gain important skills that i believe will be useful in my career life ,which is Soliya. This assignment have helped me be more comfortable in expressing my opinions and beliefs to others and also it helped in accepting opposing/different opinions without feeling offended or attacked. It is very important to listen to others and understand where their beliefs come from to be able to have an intellectual mind that accepts everything and everyone the way they are, which is a very important trait that I’m sure will be useful in my upcoming years.

There are a few assignments that i conducted in this course and would like to show them to my friends and other people. First assignment is the Empathy project because it is my favorite assignment in the whole course and it is the one I’m most proud of. This assignment has a very important message from my perspective that should be shared with everyone ( which i already did, i shared it with my friends , family and even on my social media accounts because as i said i’m so proud of the end result!!). The second assignment would be the Digital pathway (part 2) , because it consists of all my favorite things in the world and all the things i wish i conquer on day. The last thing would be for AUC students, is this final reflection. I wants as many students as possible to take this course before they graduate because it was very beneficial yet in an interesting way so i would want them to read this reflection to know more about the course.

However, if i had the option to adjust or change some of the assignments or activities done through this course i would try to give the students an alternative for Soliya, because even though it was a very beneficial activity for me some students might not be confident with the idea to talk with people they don’t know and from different cultures. So i think students should be offered an alternative at the beginning of the semester. Also, i would change the annotation assignments because i felt it was easier to read a whole article and do a full reflection rather than only commenting on a single line or paragraph. i don’t know, i felt like it was limiting me.

If i could describe in one sentences, what kind of person should take this course i would say someone who has creativity, thinks outside the box, is keen to learn new skills and is open minded.

One of the reasons, why i love the course and enjoy is the availability of different opportunities and techniques. For almost all the assignments we were given the freedom to choose how to submit it, either in a form of a blog post, a video, a photo or even powerpoint. This freedom of choosing was very important so student were able to choose the forms they were most comfortable with. Not only with assignment but also in class activities , where we were given the choice of wether reading an article or watch a ted talk and when we shifted to e-learning because of the pandemic we were given the option to either attend the zoom online classes or write a blog post about it. These opportunities were very important for me to be able to do my assignment using the most comfortable way for me to receive the best outcome.

1. After watching Zeynep’s ted talk , i have learned a few things. First, i have learned about the persuasion architecture , which is apparently a very well-known concept but it was the first time for me to fully understand the concept and i even did further research to understand more. PA is done using artificial intelligence programs that track everything we do online from liking a post, sharing a video, writing a comment , visiting a certain website or page online to even privately sent message to your friends on social media platforms. They use these information, to bombard us with pop ads or even specially designed messages sent to our phones with thing familiar to the tags we searched for to persuade us to buy it or follow them. Secondly, these advertisements can actually try to affect you political view and beliefs , to persuade you in an indirect way to shift to what they want. Thirdly, we humans are the ones who created these complex artificial intelligence systems yet now we don’t really know how to adjust the algorithms to limit their control and access on our lives or maybe some people do know how but its not in their benefit to limit AI.

2. I think the only solution available now, it to raise awareness about how AI and online platforms use our personal data and track everything we do without even our consent. People need to know how they can control such problem by limiting their online usage to only trustful platforms or limiting the personal data they share online.

3. What i would change about my behavior maybe , is that it i’ll be more careful about sharing personal data online, use only trusted websites and not to open any random links i receive form social media accounts or through email.

4. While i was doing the empathy projects i was searching on youtube for online footages about animal abuse and abandoned animals. From the very first video i used, all the related videos where about the same topic and even until now when i open my youtube account i still find similar videos in the recommenced section.

Part 2:

For the second part of the digital literacies pathway, i chose tinkerting. Also based on the results of my digital confidence profile, one of the results that i got was that I’m confident in creativity and innovation so i should i should choose a path to practice both features to further enhance them. Also, because i wanted to end the semester with an interesting and entertaining assignment.

1. On my bucket list:

I have had so many things on my bucket list that i have already done like going sky diving, bungee jumping , pet a lion and swim with the dolphins. However, every while i find new investing things to add to my bucket list. The first picture, is me in an animal shelter surrounded by hundreds of dogs and it was one hell of a moment! My love for animals is endless, i might even love them as much as i love humans. It is my long life dream, to open an animal shelter one day to help as homeless pets as i can. This has been my dream since i was a get, and growing up i realized that its not that easy specially here in Egypt where most of the people don’t really care about other living organisms except themselves but that won’t stop me! I have a plan to graduate and work as much as it takes to be able to have a good amount of money to open my own animal shelter because i believe that this is one of the reason why god sent me to earth.The next picture, the one with the boy jumping off the cliff, is the next thing on my bucket list! I’m such an adventurous person, i went sky diving, zip lining and bungee jumping all in one week in my trip to South Africa. I like the adrenaline rush i get when i do risky and difficult activities. Also, the picture below it, with the girl swimming with the sharks, definitely emphasis on my love for adventures animals. I had the chance to do it in SA also but my parents refused because they were afraid that anything might go wrong but now since i’m 21 i don’t needed there approval anymore hahaha. Last but not least, i have always wanted to challenge myself and try to be a vegetarian for a whole month. I think its a challenge because it requires someone who has a strong will and is determinant, which is not really me at this stage in my life but hopefully i will someday.

2) Your love for your pet :

When i saw that the title of one of the assignments is your love for you pet, i didn’t even think twice! As i mentioned above, my love for all animals is infinite so imagine my love for my own pet. My cat is named Twixy, i had his mom since i was in 5th grade and she brought him to life when i was in 8th grade. His my source of happiness, calmness and love. He is so much more than a cat to me, he has been sleeping with my every night for the past 7 years , i share so many memories with him and now his is sitting next to me while i’m typing this. However, there is one incident that happened that caused my love for him to grow even more. Two years ago, my grandfather , whom i have lived with since i was 3 years old, passed away. It was a very hard day for all of us and so i remember going up to my room, where Twixy was sleeping, and i hugged him so hard and kept crying for 40 minutes start and he didn’t move an inch. He stayed there the whole 40 minutes , while i hugged him uncomfortably because he felt that something was wrong and that i needed him. A few days later, he got very sick and i took him to 3 different Doctors but he wasn’t getting any better until one day, i mentioned to one of the doctors that my grandfather passed away a week ago and immediately he diagnosed him with depression. My cat was very attached to my grandfather but i never knew that animals feel the sadness over a deceased person. He was on antidepressants and thankfully got better after 3 days.

3) Dream Vacation:

I made a deal with my dad since i was 16 years old, that when i’m 25 years old i get to go on an open safari in Kenya on my own and stay there for a minimum of 2 weeks. I love photography specially landscapes and natural scenery so it has been my a dream to go on a solo trip to Kenya, with my camera and stay in a safari lodge in the middle of the jungle. When was younger, my dad used to keep telling me the different stories and adventures he encountered when he was there, which is one of the reasons why i have always looked forward for such a trip. I have been to South Africa 3 years ago and it was an amazing experience which i really enjoyed yet it hasn’t fulfilled my dream to go on a wild trip , in the middle of the open safari areas in Kenya and stay in a lodge in the middle of the jungle with all the animals surrounding me. I enjoy the feeling of adventure and thriller, i believe that these feelings add to the meaning of my life because it makes me always looking forward for the next adventure to take of my bucket list.

4) Splash the colors:

I have always been into photography, specially natural sceneries and animals. I took this picture in 2018, in Alexandria. While all my friends where taking pictures together and enjoying the view, i couldn’t help but notice the beautiful beauty of the cat sitting by the sea and looking deeply into it. The beauty of the scene, caught my eye in a second so i went really quickly to snap the picture.

I used the an application called GIMP to edit this photo. I chose to emphasis the color of the cat because it is the center of attention of the image. The idea of this photo, revolves around the cat and the way she is sitting on the sea while enjoying the view just like us humans!

Part 1:

So out of the 4 different paths we had for the digital literacies pathway, i decided to choose the twisting paths, which is a combination between two different paths from which i chose tinkering and theory. In this part i will reflect on the theory path, which i chose because based on the results i received from the digital confidence profile, which you can find here, is that i lack skills and confidence in the tools and technology. The article i chose from Mozilla Internet report , talks about privacy and security.

People are becoming more and more aware about digital privacy and security in the past years which is a very crucial topic that everyone needs to know about. The article talks about how big companies and online platforms use our private data without asking for our consent for their own benefit or they gather the data to sell it to other organization for large sums of money. This act happens everywhere, in every country in the world. Facebook for example, in 2018 faced a huge drop in its stock prices because the information was leaked that they used people’s private data without their approve for political purposes.

Reading this article, made me realize even more the importance of such issue and that people must be more aware of the fraud of their personal data. Everyday, there is a new application or a new game or a new social media platform that we download and agree to their terms and conditions without bothering to read them since they are usually very long and in very small hand writing, which i believe is one on purpose so most people would agree without bothering to read it. Certain groups of people who have enough information about such topic should help in raising awareness and warning people. We need to have more privacy regulations to be enforced by the law of the government on companies that misuse people’s information without their approval, they should try to treat people data like banks treat their money as said in the article.

Throughout my educational years in uni, i have used several digital tool to help in my learning process. In this course, i have used some of the previously familiar tools yet some new tools that i haven’t used before. This blog post will include the tools which i found it interesting to use and have helped me to complete this course.

Youtube:

In the past years ,I have always used youtube to watch movies, listen to music or watch a ted talk. However, in this course it was my first time to use YouTube to post my own created content. For the digital pathway project, me and Haidi chose to represent our topic in a form of a video because we thought that this will be the best way to represent our message about raising awareness against abandoning of pets due to the spread of COVID-19. At first, we tried other methods to share our video with Dr.Maha and our colleagues but they failed since the file of the video was very large. Then it popped in my mind to use youtube so i made an account and staring uploading our video and i it was the first time to know the features available. I was given options to choose the appropriate age to view the video ,to add a description and even choose if the video should be private or public. I think it was the easiest way to upload the video online and share it with everyone by o only copying and pasting the link of the video.

Zoom:

Zoom is an application that offer video conferencing like Skype however, it has various and more features than most of the video conferencing application i have used before.

I was first introduced to Zoom this year since it has been the most used application the past few months due to the global pandemic we are facing. Everyone is using it to try to complete their work tasks and life routines. I used it to attend virtual classes to able to complete this academic semester and to meet up with my team mates to work on our projects since it has the feature of screensharing which i found very useful. During our empathy project, me and Haidi used to talk on zooms for hours while sharing our screen so we could choose together which clips to use and which edits to implement so it was very handy. I also used to to workout with my friends since all training facilities are closed and i used to workout 3-4 times a week. Another interesting feature available in Zoom is the breakouts room, which we used several times in our class. This feature allowed us to be grouped into several groups and discuss different questions or discuss different articles as we did in class on May 4th, when Dr.Maha grouped people who read the same article together so we can discuss it efficiently. However, the application sometimes lags or makes leave the meeting automatically when there is a weak internet connection which occurred with me several times.

Solyia:

At the beginning of the semester, when i was first introduced to the assignment of Solyia i wasn’t really excited fro such experience because i thought that i won’t be comfortable to have a  two hour video conference for 4 weeks with people that i don’t know and all from different nationalities. However,rafter the first meeting i started getting used to the idea and i really enjoyed the different topics we chose to talk about like  cultures, importance of traveling and  gender equality. We were encouraged to express ourselves freely while also taking care not to unintentionally hurt other’s feelings. Our facilitator always made sure to engage all the participants and give everyone a chance to express themselves freely. I also liked the diversity of Soliya since i believe that its important to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures and to get to know their opinions on certain topics because this helps in developing proper views and well oriented opinions on  certain topics. Last but not least, i really liked how the conversations on Solyia was informal to an extent so it felt more like a new and different experience rather than an assignment. Im glad that i had the chance to be a part of this assignment because i think it is an important and interesting experience.

Word Press:

I was also introduced to word press through this class from the beginning since we use it in submitting our assignments in the form of blog posts. At the beginning of the semester, i wasn’t used to the website and i struggled to set up the account. Also, i didn’t know how to view my own posts or how to follow my colleagues but as times passed i got more and more used to it. This was the very first time for me to create a blog so i was actually very excited that all our class work and assignment is to be in form of blogs rather than the traditional way ,in form of formal papers, which most of the other courses use.

Writing blog posts helped in completing my assignment and expressing my opinion easily since i don’t have to use a formal tone which makes it easier of course. Also, the idea of following my colleagues, being able to read their posts and add a comment or like was very interesting and helpful for me as i could help them by giving them feedback and vice versa.

Slack:

Slack is an application , that offer a communication platform and that you can download on your phone or laptop, which was a very convenit feature for me since i have always have my phone withe me and i received notification when anything new was added the channel. It was the first time to hear about slack through this course since we use it in all our communications like posting about new assignments, shared zoom links for the class, articles to read and even random memes and jokes. This was defiantly a new and better way to communicate all together as a class because its easier to accesses i said from you phone, its faster to reach out for the Dr using the feature of chatting rather than the hassle and the formality of the email and you can create different channels for every topic like we did for this course. We had a channel for Solyia, assignments and a private channel for the class so we can ask our colleagues questions. Dr. Maha always remind us with due dates and class times during the quarantine , which was very important since during this time most us are not able to keep up with remember deadlines.

I really liked the use of the application Slack more than Blackboard and WhatsApp because it has more features and it is easier for us to communicate and share things together as a class.

I played Google Draw twice and was amazed both times. At first, i drew the objects very well and precisely so the system could guess it then i decided to understand how it guesses the drawing so i started drawing only hints and yet the system still guessed. I didn’t really understand how it could guess the object even if i drew something that’s not even in anyway accurate.

In the above examples, my drawing could be anything other than a camel like dinosaur yet the first guess for the system was camel!! I’m amazed.

After watching Safiya Noble’s ted talk i have realized that there are actual biases on our daily lives that we don’t even recognize and might never do until someone enlightens us about it so i think we do need to analyze a lot of things that we see in our daily lives from another perspective.. Also, when she said that “Feminisms is divorced from women”, at first i thought she was exaggerating bu then i realized that she is true. We as women don’t even realize that we are being objectified and people are buying biases against us. We need to start to take care of how the technology is a double ended sword that has a lot of benefits yet is filled with drawbacks that’s affecting us without even noticing.

At the beginning of the semester, when i was first introduced to the assignment of Solyia i wasn’t really excited fro such experience because i thought that i won’t be comfortable to have a two hour video conference for 4 weeks with people that i don’t know and all from different nationalities. I believed that i won’t be able to engage with them since I’m not really a social or talkative person in general. However, to my surprise the experience as whole was actually interesting and beneficial.

At first, i didn’t really understand the process of joining the conference but i called my colleagues who attended their first session before me and they helped me out. After i joined the session, my interest connectivity was very weak so i wasn’t able to open my camera or even use the mic to speak with the other participants so i had to use the group chat throughout the whole session to reply or ask any question, which of course was very devastating and annoying. Also, i was logged out several times because of the internet connectivity and the fact that the website is heavy. Apart from the technical problems, the session was fine. My disappoint was that the question asked by the facilitators were really basic like tell us your identity and what you hobbies. Also, the process of waiting fro everyone to answer the question was really time consuming like it took almost 30-35 mins to answer a simple question like introduce yourself.

However the rest of the sessions, me and the other participants were getting more comfortable to express and share our opinions about different topics. Our facilitator, gave us the opportunity to choose a topic to discuss the following session which i thought was crucial so we get to talk about topics that we are interest to discuss and hare rather than being forced to talk about certain topics. We were also divide into pairs into breakout rooms which was more comfortable for me to talk to only one person and get to know about their cultures and life style.

I really enjoyed the different topics we chose to talk about like cultures, importance of traveling and gender equality. We were encouraged to express ourselves freely while also taking care not to unintentionally hurt other’s feelings. Our facilitator always made sure to engage all the participants and give everyone a chance to express themselves freely. I also liked the diversity of Soliya since i believe that its important to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures and to get to know their opinions on certain topics because this helps in developing proper views and well oriented opinions on certain topics. Last but not least, i really liked how the conversations on Solyia was informal to an extent so it felt more like a new and different experience rather than an assignment.

Unfortunately, i missed the last session of Soliya for personal reasons even though i was looking forward to it. So i attuned an alternative that was set by Dr. Maha Blai, which was a video conference on Zoom that tackled how professors should care for their students in such times. Fortunately, it was a very interesting conference where professors kept discussing and suggesting ways that they should do to show their students that they care about them and that they understand the pressure we are facing with everything that’s happening around us. This conference, actually made me realize that professors do care about their students and their well-being because it does affect how we function in our courses and how we handle the workload. So it defiantly was an interesting and informative conference where professors expressed their beliefs and students expressed their opinions using the chat.

To conclude, Soliya was definitely a different, new and interesting experience that i have been though in my all years in Uni. It helped me be more comfortable in expressing my opinions and beliefs infant of other, also it helped in accepting opposing/different opinions without feeling offended or attacked. It is very important to listen to others and understand where their beliefs come from to be able to have an intellectual mind that accepts everything and everyone the way they are.

After the spread of the pandemic, Egypt is seeing a surge in abandoned pets as residents fear they will spread coronavirus. And later on, it turned out that the idea of animal spreading coronavirus is just a rumor and a piece of false information. Fortunately, a lot of animal shelters decided to take care of these animals, to provide them with treatments, with food, and to nurture them. Owning a pet is a huge responsibility not only when it comes to taking care of it, but the way you treat it says a lot about you as a person. Our relationship with our pets is completely human-centered. And so, a person risking his pet’s life by leaving it in the streets with no food, no shelter because he fears it will transmit him the coronavirus is a sort of egotistical act and very inhuman. It only shows that this person doesn’t deserve to own a pet. And it contributes and perpetuates the undeniable cycle of a human-centered human/animal relationship. And what aggravates more the issue is the idea that the majority of people who decided to abandon their pets in the streets are people from middle-to-upper social classes whom their minimal educational attainment is a degree. This shows that even the most educated individuals in Egypt aren’t fully aware of animal rights; besides, they believe rumors and don’t question the credibility of the information spread.We are very passionate about animal rights and being the voice of the voiceless. So we decided to do a short video that emphasizes this issue and try to raise awareness as much as we can. 

When making the video, we starting planning the best way for this video to actually affect the emotions’s of the people and make them eager to stop such inhumane act. So after an intensive research we decided to split the video into two parts. The first part represented pets that are still domestically owned, which some belonged to us, some belonged to our friends and some were . We chose the footages that showed how pampered and loved these pets are by their families to be presented at the beginning of the video followed by the footages that showed the abandoned and abused pets thrown in the street. We insisted on using this transition to be able to trigger the emotional part in our viewers. Also, the footages were accompanied with our choice of a very emotional and saddening music to able to make the viewer feel what they hear and see which i believe is crucial because music helps in expressing feelings. Our hashtag in the video is #voiceofthevoicless, which is the whole purpose of this video that’s why Haidi and i decided to make my voice over using first person. In my voiceover, we chose simple yet meaningful words to try to express how these abandoned pets think and feel when they are abandoned in the streets.

The tricky part was editing the video because we had to crop multiple footages from different videos then added the voice over and the background music in specific order to follow the flow and sequences of the video. To conclude, this was for me the most interesting assignment throughout the whole semester because we got to chose a topic that we are passionate about so it was very exciting to work on. Haidi and i are very passionate about helping the helpless animals and encourage people to be kind to them. I even have an instagram page called Petsofegy where i uploaded the video to reach as many people as possible to help in raising the awareness against abandoning pets due to the spread of Corona virus. The video got 500 views which is way more than expected and that’s only on instagram, i also shared on all my social media platforms to help in taking a stand against such horrendous act.

Links of Youtube videos:

Link of the background music: Max Richter. “She remembers”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg4SgNYeCgU

And finally link of the video.