Term | Definition |
Media | Communication, including television, radio and newspapers, that often reaches and impacts a large audience. |
Digital Media | Electronic devices and media platforms such as computers, cell phones, and Internet, digital video, social networking sites, video games, and virtual worlds that allow users to create, communicate, and interact with one another or the device/application |
Digital Footprint | All of the information online about a person, either posted by that person or others, whether intentionally or unintentionally. |
Bystander | People who witness the actions of a bully and the reactions of the victim(s), without taking action. |
Upstander | Someone who takes action to stop bullying behavior or other inappropriate behaviors. |
Flaming | Saying mean things, usually in ALL CAPS, and often in public forums with the intention to humiliate. |
Happy-Slapping | Recording someone being harassed or bullied in a way that usually involves physical abuse, then posting the video online for public viewing. |
Avatar | A graphic (picture, image) that you use to represent yourself on the Internet. |
Catfishing | To deceive someone by assuming a false identity online. |
Geotagging | The process of tying location-based information into photos, videos, and text messages. |
Cyberbullying | The use of digital media tools such as the Internet and cell phones to deliberately and repeatedly hurt, harass, or embarrass someone else. |
Anti-virus Software | Software for blocking malicious (bad) programs, such as viruses or malware, from harming your computer. |
Bully | Someone who acts in an aggressive, hostile, or hurtful manner toward others. |
Citation / Cite / Citing | A reference which names the source of specific information which has been used. |
Citizenship | Being a member of and supporting your community and country. Citizens have both rights and responsibilities. |
Copyright | The owner’s legal right to reproduce, display, transmit, perform, and modify a work as well as the right to publicly perform a sound recording by digital transmission. |
Creative Commons | A license that lets you decide how others may use your work. The license allows you to keep your copyright but also allow others to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit and only on the conditions you specify. |
Downloading | The process of transferring files from a website/Internet location down to your personal computer. It can be either authorized or unauthorized by the content creator - and may contain malware. Beware! |
Emoji / Emoticon | A simple face, sometimes animated, that expresses an emotion; allows you to show someone online how you are feeling. |
Empathy | Being aware of, sensitive to, and understanding what someone else is feeling or experiencing. |
Fair Use | The idea that copyright material may be quoted without the need for permission from or payment to the original source, provided that a citation is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief. |
Firewall | Hardware or software that blocks or filters certain types of network traffic from reaching your computer. |
Hacker | Someone who accesses computer information without permission. |
Harassment | To annoy someone repeatedly. For example, cursing at, following, or mocking someone online. |
Hardware | A term for the actual computer equipment and related machines or computer parts. |
Identity Theft | A crime that happens when someone gets the personal information (e.g., credit card, social security number, bank account numbers) of another person, usually to steal money. |
Intellectual Property | Includes art, books, inventions, magazines, movies, music, performances, reports, software, stories created by you or by others. |
Jeopardize | To put something at risk or in danger, such as your reputation or digital footprint. |
Keyword | A word you use when looking for information on a search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc). |
Malicious | Means to cause harm to someone or something on purpose. |
Malware | Stands for malicious software or code, which includes any harmful code—trojans, worms, spyware, adware, etc.—that is designed to damage the computer or collect information. |
Media Literacy | The ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms. |
Netiquette | Courtesy, honesty, and polite behavior practiced on the Internet - key component of digital citizenship! |
Open Source | Programming code with limited or no copyright restrictions, allowing you to legally modify and share the software program. |
Password | The secret code you use when signing in to the Internet or an online service that helps to confirm your identity, can include numbers, letters and/or symbols. |
Phishing | A con game that scammers use to collect personal information from unsuspecting users. The false e-mails often look surprisingly legitimate, and even the Web pages where you are asked to enter your information may look real. |
Piracy | Theft of intellectual property - in other words, stealing what does not belong to you. |
Plagiarism | Using someone else's words or ideas and passing them off as your own. |
Precautions | Actions taken in advance to protect against possible danger, failure, or injury; a safeguard. |
Predator | One who stalks or uses lies, secrecy, or stealth, to get close enough to another person in order to easily hurt or harm them. Usually an adult. |
Privacy | Your right to determine what information you would like others to know about you. |
Public Service Announcement (PSA) | A short 30-90 second video that seeks to inform or educate the public about an important health or safety issue. |
Search Engine | A program that searches information on the Web by looking for specific keywords. |
Software Patch | An upgrade (adding more features), a bug fix, a new hardware driver or update to address new issues such as security or stability problems. |
Spyware | Software that goes on your computer without your knowledge and steals private information. |
Tolerance | Respecting those who are different from you. |
Trojan Horse | Similar to the Greek mythology, this is a software program that hides inside regular programs, such as games, disk utilities, and even antivirus programs. But if they are run, these programs can do great harm to your computer. |
Upload | The process by which an individual can send or post a file to the Internet. |
Victim | Someone who is harmed by another person or persons. |
Virus | A program that duplicates itself and spreads throughout your computer destroying files, changing data, hogging all your memory, or doing anything that is possible with a computer program; only damages software, not hardware. |
Worm | A type of virus that replicates itself, but does not change any files on your machine. However, it can multiply so many times that it takes up all your computer's available memory or hard disk space. |