Do you speak my language: T is for TCP/IP, Trojan Horse, Tunnelling, Twitter, Troll

T is for TCP/IP, Trojan Horse, Tunnel, Twitter, Troll

Now, there can only be one choice here... TWITTER, but I am actually going to go with Troll!

The reason I am not going to write about Twitter here is because I want to cover it in some detail in a later post, hence I will leave it for now. However, I will say that I think Twitter is a great tool to use in teaching, and I just can't believe that more use is not made of it.

Troll: This is a good one, and something you need to guard against in your teaching.

A troll (in the context of computers) is a person who lurks on discussion boards and is basically there to cause trouble by posting messages that are designed to anger other users. These messages may be personal attacks on users, they may be off topic comments, or they may be misleading information. The messages may also be Flame Bait (see F - Do you speak my language: F is for Frontend, FORTRAN, Facebook, FAQ, Firewall, Flame, Flame Bait, FTP, FTPS), that is, an attempt to get an argument going to disrupt a discussion.

As you can imagine, in a teaching environment having a troll on a discussion board would be very disruptive, and could have a really negative impact on teaching. Personally I have not encountered trolls on teaching discussion boards or forums, but I have bumped in to them in other discussion groups.

If you are trying to run a discussion board or forum in your teaching, or you use discussion boards to talk about your teaching, then watch out for trolls!

The other Ts in the list:

TCP/IP: This is the way the Internet works.... It is the way that remote computers connect and communicate. TCP/IP has no real relevance to teaching, but it is a phrase that you may hear IT types use.

Tunnel: This has nothing to do with digging holes, but is a method that allows you to securely connect distant computers. This can be useful in teaching if you want to allow remote students access to on campus material or systems (see V in this series for VPN and VNC).

Trojan Horse: A piece of software (see S - Do you speak my language: S is for Server, SEO, SMTP, Script, SFTP, SSH, SEO, Shell, Site Map, Source Code, Software) that appears to do one thing, but in fact contains some malicious code that is designed to do something sneaky and underhand such as stealing all your contact details, or turning your machine in to a Zombie (see Z in this series).

Protein: 3OTJ

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