RIP Biskit.

 ♥ 

 

I am not entirely certain where my obsession with dogs came from, but somewhere early along the line I developed a great love for those 4 legged (sometimes 3!) balls of love that want nothing more than to cuddle up with you and be stroked.

I can recall in Year 3 starting a scrapbook of dog pictures that I cut out from the newspaper or magazines and treasuring it dearly. My best friend at the time had 2 dogs, and I was insanely jealous - despite one of them being a snappy little maltese terrier. To this day I still don't really rate small white dogs!

 All (frequent) pleas for a dog fell on deaf ears for many years, as my mum wasn't a huge fan and didn't want the mess and hassle of a dog. I was, however, allowed to keep fish, and grew somewhat attached to them, moping for days when any of them carked it. But my heart still yearned for a softer pet.


At 13 my Dad chose to be made redundant after 35+ years of service at Hamersley Iron (a division of Rio Tinto), and we made the big move from Tom Price to Perth. Absolutely devastated doesn't begin to cover it, and as an already fairly shy bookworm, I didn't thrive in my new surroundings, which just so happened to be the biggest school in the state.


Finding it hard to make friends, and hating school for the first time in my life, I became more and more anxious and unhappy with my life. Of course I was a 13-14 year old at the time, the height of emotional turbulence and awkwardness, but this was probably something a little more.


My parents were fixing up our house at the time, and enjoyed heading out to all the boring places on the weekend: kitchen and bathroom supplies stores, renovator wonderlands and carpet showrooms AKA hell-on-earth for a teenager.

At the time, "Get over yourself, Dawson" was a favoured saying. Sometimes it still makes an appearance. Pacey on the other hand can do whatever he likes.

Since I had nothing better to do most weekends, sometimes I tagged along - but most of the time I spent playing computer games or completing 'Dawson's Creek' quizzes on the internet. No judgement on the last point, please.


One weekend my parents were heading out to look at some taps for our new bathroom, zzz, and asked if I would like to come with. Clearly not, but the bribe of the icecream that came next was enough to get me to submit and off we went.


After randomly driving for 15-20 minutes my parents turned around to me and said "we're not really going to look at taps, we're going to buy a dog". I couldn't believe it, and asked them "REALLY?" about 10 times before even believing them 5%. I was crying a little bit, kinda like Dawson above, because it was such a surreal moment.


My parents knew that I was having a rough time, and thought that a dog might cheer me up and help get me back on track.


We went to about three dog shelters that day looking for a suitable new friend. One lady yelled at us and told us to go away. The other shelters all had larger dogs and my Mum was only willing to concede to a small-medium dog. While we were at the Shenton Park Dog's Home, I saw a small golden English Cocker Spaniel walk out from the boarders section (so she wasn't for sale) - but then I knew that it was the type of dog for me! My dad had a black spaniel years earlier and was happy with that decision too.


We went to a breeder later that day, and I chose an orange and white pup. Best day ever!


At first I wanted to call him "Eli", although I have no idea why, but my mum said no because it was "too religious" (lol?). We decided on Biskit because he kind of looked like one, and we wanted the spelling to be a bit different.


From then on I was definitely a lot happier, his floppy ears, general adorableness and the way he lay next to my bedroom door in the morning was a source of joy for me.


Sadly he passed away at the age of six due to a liver problem, but he will always be in my heart and my dad keeps a photograph of him next to his computer :)


Biskit, Thank you. I will love you always. xox

Digital Footprints!

Then provide me (in your own blog)with how you would go about an awareness campaign in schools on the use of recording, uploading and the sharing of inappropriate material that has, now, a digital footprint and cannot easily be erased.



Every action, comment and picture that we upload to the internet has the possibility of being available to view. FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!

This is troublesome, as we are not always in control of what gets posted about us on the internet. Even someone snapping an unfavourable photo of you having a few drinks at a party and uploading it to Facebook without your consent can be damaging to your reputation.

Thankfully Facebook now has an option that allows you to approve all 'tags' before they show up on your profile.

Despite knowing this, there have been occasions I can recall where 'unfavourable' content has been posted about myself or other friends online, nothing drastic but just some things that would be better not publicly available.

Having been online since I was 15, it would have been great for schools to implement an awareness campaign about these issues when I was younger.

This issue will continue to grow though, consider how many babies are online before they are even BORN (ultrasound pics) and whose parents post hundreds of photos of them on Facebook as they grow up. I'm sure we all have people on our Facebook who do this!

This is how I would approach my Digital Footprint Awarness Campaign:

1. Background Research - conduct in-depth research into the number of school aged children using the internet and social media sites, in particular Youtube, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

Research school aged childrens opinion on online behaviour, what awareness they have of the dangers, and questions such as: if they are aware but are still undertaking risky behaviour - why is that?

2. Define the goals and objectives - eg. to ensure that 80% of school aged children are taught how to communicate appropriately online and the repercussions of not doing so. Another goal could be to educate parents as well.

This would be a MASSIVE campaign, so it's something that the government would need to implement.

3. Target Market - any children of the age where they are using and surfing the internet, as well as parents of these children.

4. Key Messages - "Your online activity never disappears", "Take care with what you do and post online, it will be available to be seen for years to come", "Teach your child about the appropriate online behaviour so it doesn't affect their future".

5. Strategy - while Keith mentioned that these types of skills could possibly be the domain of parents, I believe that it may be up to the schools and government to help implement a wide-spread campaign.

The reason for this is two-fold, firstly, this is an incredibly new issue. 99% of parents would not have had any experience in the subject and as such are probably ill prepared to teach their children.

Secondly, as mentioned in class, learning institutions often teach the 'soft skills' required by students in the workforce/general life.

As such, I recommend that units of 'internet in everyday life' are embedded into the school curriculum from a very young age, and built upon every year. The internet is such a large part of life now that it's necessary, and I feel this is the only way that it would reach a large enough number of children for it to be beneficial running a campaign.

6. Channels - face-to-face teacher interaction, examples of all forms of internet communication in the classroom, newsletters to parents, tv advertising.

7. Legal and Ethical Issues - there would be some issues with this campaign. One of them being that possibly not all children would have access to the internet at the time of teaching. However, they would still have access via other sources such as the library, friends houses and more than likely will have extended access in the future so it is still worthwhile for these students.

8. Timeline - a realistic timeline rollout for this campaign would be 5 years, with quite a bit of evaluation along the way, including feedback from children, parents and teachers.

This is my idea and I'm looking forward to reading everyone elses! :)

A x