GAB’er Page: 1 November 12, 2019

THE GAB’ER
Newsletter of the Greater Albany AppleByters: November, 2019
GAAB is celebrating its 36th year (2019-2020).

GAAB Meeting Agenda

Greetings and Dinner

Further Discussion of the Apple Products

Discussion: Topics presented by members and

News from Apple including Mac OS X and iOS Updates

GAAB Help Desk: Bring your question

LaptopMag is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate
commission. Learn more

Apple AirPods Pro Review

With effective noise cancelling, good sound quality and a comfortable,

sweat-resistant design, the AirPods Pro are the complete package.

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 2 November 12, 2019

By Phillip Tracy, Laptop Magazine(https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews)

(Image: © Laptop Mag)

Our Verdict

With effective noise cancelling, good sound quality and a comfortable, sweat-resistant
design, the AirPods Pro are the complete package.

For

• Extremely comfortable
• Seamless pairing
• Clear, balanced sound
• Decent noise cancellation
• IPX4 sweat resistance

Against

• Not the best sound for the price

• Battery life could be better

• Pricey

AirPods remain the hottest thing in consumer audio, but that didn't stop Apple from releasing
a new pair that is better in every way than its predecessor. The AirPods Pro ($250) cost $90
more than their siblings, but that extra cash gets you decent noise cancellation, sweat
resistance, a more secure-fitting design and improved sound quality.
Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com
GAB’er Page: 3 November 12, 2019

If you're looking for a pair of wireless earbuds and don't need the very best audio quality, then
the AirPods Pro should be at the top of your list. They're definitely at the top of ours, landing a
spot on our Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones page. If you already own the AirPods, then
you don't necessarily need to upgrade — although you'll be glad if you do.

Beats Solo Pro price and availability

The AirPods Pro cost $249, which is $90 more than the original AirPods with the regular
charging case and $50 more than the version with a wireless charging case.

You can buy the AirPods Pro at major online retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy and
Walmart, or directly from Apple.

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...

What's in the box?

Apple ships the AirPods Pro with a wireless charging case, a Lightning-to-USB-C cable and
silicone ear tips in three sizes (small, medium and large).

Design

The AirPods Pro have the same DNA as the AirPods but are improved in a few ways.

Subtle curves and a stark, white housing give the AirPods Pro a retro-futuristic aesthetic,
while black mesh lines the microphones like KT tape on an athlete. The AirPods Pro have a
larger housing than their cheaper sibling and a more ergonomic shape that improves comfort
and keeps the earbuds securely in your ear (more on this below).

I also prefer how the AirPods Pro look compared to the cheaper models. Yes, the AirPods
Pro are goofy looking, but the smaller stems don't stand out as much as those on the AirPods
— not that it matters. As the original AirPods proved, if enough people wear something, no
matter how awkward it appears at first, it starts to look normal. Between the new design
(which looks decidedly less like a toothbrush head) and the AirPods' ubiquity, there is no
reason to feel self-conscious about wearing the AirPods Pro around in public.

Apple essentially rotated the AirPods's charging case from portrait to landscape mode. It's
still much smaller and lighter weight than competing cases, but it now looks less like a floss
container. On the front of the case is a small LED battery indicator, and on the back is a
pairing button. I like how the case stays open and closes with a satisfying snap.

Arguably the biggest improvement from the AirPods to the AirPods Pro is that the new buds
offer IPX4 water- and sweat-resistance so you can use them in the gym.

Comfort

Don't worry: The AirPods Pro are every bit as comfortable as the original AirPods. You may
have feared those silicon tips, but they won't dig into your ears like they do on traditional

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 4 November 12, 2019

earbuds. Instead, the flat nozzles sit just outside your ear canal and let the silicon tips form a
soft seal.

I even prefer the fit of the AirPods Pro over that of the original buds, because the new ones
feel less prone to falling out. Instead of just dangling off your ears, the AirPods Pros' housing
settled neatly into the groove of my ear with a simple twist. They didn't budge an inch when I
headbanged like a rock star or used the elliptical at the gym.

Apart from their unique shape, what makes the AirPods so comfortable is how lightweight
they are. While a bit heavier than the AirPods, at 5.4 grams versus 4 grams, the AirPods Pro
are very lightweight, so, for better or worse, you'll quickly forget you're wearing them.

Controls

Touch controls on competing earbuds can be finicky, and physical controls require you to
push a button that can drive the buds into your ear canals. Apple's clever solution to this
conundrum relies on the stems on the AirPods Pro.

Instead of tapping a touch sensor, you control the AirPods Pro by squeezing a "force sensor"
on their stems.

The new system works brilliantly. Squeezing the stems once played music; when my tunes
were playing, that squeeze paused the music so I could chat with a colleague. The same
action also answers calls. By double squeezing, you can skip to the next track, while a third
squeeze will take you the previous song. Squeeze and hold the stem, and you can switch
between noise-cancelling and transparency modes.

I thought there would be more of a learning curve, but I executed each of the desired controls
on the first try.

MORE: Best Tech for Travel

That said, there are some annoying limitations that I hope Apple addresses in an update or in
future versions. My biggest complaint is that you can't control volume levels directly from the
AirPods Pro. If you want to turn down or crank up your music, you'll have to do so from your
smartphone or with Siri.

Noise-cancelling and transparency mode

The AirPods Pro feature active noise cancellation, which uses outward- and inward-facing
microphones to detect unwanted sounds and counter them with "anti-noise." The noise
reduction works well, but does it justify the price gulf between the AirPods Pro and the
AirPods? That depends.

If you plan on taking them on flights, then the AirPods Pro should do a good job of muffling
the low roar of a plane engine. They won't, however, save your ears from the baby crying in
the seat next to you.

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 5 November 12, 2019

The AirPods Pro did a good job of silencing onlookers encouraging New York City Marathon
runners outside my home. But these buds were no match for the viewers' applause when I
left my apartment and joined the festivities.

I had mixed results in the office. The earbuds completely eliminated the low hum of our
building's HVAC, but I could clearly hear talkative colleagues and the clacking of a nearby
mechanical keyboard with music playing at low volume levels. Similarly, the AirPods Pro
quieted my morning commute from Manhattan to Brooklyn, but I still had to play music at
75% volume to overcome the screeching of an old F train.

Advertisement

MORE: Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones | Laptop Mag

With that in mind, don't expect the level of noise reduction that you get from over-ear
headphones, like the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700.

What I love most about the noise-cancelling feature is how seamlessly it works. Just put the
AirPods into your ears, and sounds are automatically reduced when a proper seal is
detected. On average, there was less than a second delay between the time I inserted the
earbuds and when the ANC turned on.

Don't want to block out the world around you? The AirPods Pro have you covered, with
Transparency mode. When this is enabled, the earbuds let in ambient sounds so that you
hear your surroundings as if you weren't wearing earbuds. The feature is great for runners or
people living in cities who want to be aware of the traffic around them.

My Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones have a similar feature, which I regularly use when
ordering drinks on a flight or chatting with my colleagues while listening to music.

Pairing and audio sharing

The H1 chip inside the AirPods Pro makes pairing to your iPhone effortless. To connect the
earbuds, I needed only to open the AirPods Pro case and press Connect when a pop-up
menu appeared on my iPhone 8 Plus.

To pair to a Mac or non-Apple device (an Android phone or a Windows PC), you press and
hold the setup button on the back of the AirPods Pro case and connect via the respective
device's Bluetooth settings.

Audio Sharing is a fun iOS 13 feature that lets you share audio to multiple pairs of AirPods or
compatible Beats products. That way, you and a friend can listen to the same song
simultaneously. You can think of Audio Sharing as an invisible headphone splitter. In
practice, the feature worked exactly as I had hoped.

Once I paired the AirPods Pro and the Beats Solo Pros to an iPhone 8 Plus running iOS 13, a
new icon appeared on the volume adjuster within the Control Center. When I tapped the icon,
it linked the two sets of headphones, so whatever music was playing on the iPhone 8 Plus

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 6 November 12, 2019

would come out of both sets. Audio Sharing is compatible with any headphones or earbuds
with an H1 or W1 processor; that includes the AirPods, AirPods Pro, Beats Solo Pro,
Powerbeats Pro, Studio3 Wireless, BeatsX, Powerbeats3 Wireless and Solo3 Wireless.

Audio quality

The AirPods Pro sound very good. Competing wireless earbuds at this price, like the
Sennheiser Momentum, offer better sound quality, but the balance and clarity on the AirPods
Pro should please most listeners.

I started my test by listening to Daughter's "Youth," which sounded crisp and clear through
the AirPods Pro. I was even impressed by the impact of the drums when they kicked in after
the first chorus. Those low-frequency notes were meatier but muddier on the Momentum
True Wireless. Despite the loose bass, the Sennheiser buds' wider soundstage and more-
intimate vocals put it ahead of the AirPods Pro on this track.

The AirPods Pro handled the complicated arrangement of instruments in Glass Animals'
"Youth" well. The drums, guitars and synthesizers were nicely separated, and Dave Bayley's
delicate vocals sounded crisp. I even enjoyed the low end, until I switched to the Momentum
True Wireless and heard the sweet sound of a deep, controlled bass slamming into my ear.
The AirPods can't reach the same depths.

Julien Baker's emotive vocals were airy and well defined when I listened to "Blacktop" using
the AirPods Pro. I heard the twang of the acoustic guitar, but that sound never detracted from
the singer's delicate voice. The heavier, deeper reverb of the acoustic guitar on the
Momentum Wireless crept into the vocals more than I would have liked. At the same time, the
deep seal you get on the Momentums allowed for a more intimate, forward presentation that
work really well with the acoustic ballad.

MORE: How to Snap iPhone Pictures with Your Apple EarPods

Because of their shallow insertion, the AirPods Pro have a laid-back sound signature
compared to the Momentum's closer and more dynamic sound. The Momentums were also
louder than the AirPods Pro throughout my testing.

Call quality

The AirPods Pro get the job done but don't break any barriers on call quality. My colleague
said I sounded loud but muffled when I talked to him through the AirPods Pro's built-in
microphones.

Although though my voice wasn't very clear, the AirPods Pro sounded better than the
Amazon Echo Buds and the Sony WF-1000XM3 when my colleague called me outside of our
New York City office and switched between the three buds. The AirPods Pro also did a
decent job blocking out ambient sound, although we had to wait for an ambulance and bus to
pass by before continuing our conversation.

Battery life, charging and Bluetooth connectivity

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 7 November 12, 2019

Apple rates the AirPods Pro's battery life at 4.5 hours for the earbuds, which is just 30
minutes shorter than the regular AirPods' runtime. The case charges the AirPods Pro five to
six times before the case needs to be recharged, which brings the battery life of the pair up to
24 hours.

I got about 4 hours out of the AirPods Pro listening to music and streaming videos with ANC
turned on before the buds showed me a notification for low battery life.

That's a decent result, but there is certainly room for improvement. Other wireless, noise-
cancelling earbuds last for several hours longer on a charge. That includes the WF-1000XM3
(6 hours, 24 hours with case) and the Master & Dynamic MW07 Plus (10 hours, 40 hours with
case).

MORE: What is Bluetooth 4.0? Bluetooth Smart and Smart Ready Explained ...

When power runs low, you can pop the AirPods Pro into their charging case and get 1 hour of
listening time from just 5 minutes of charging. Unfortunately, the case uses Apple's
proprietary Lightning input, not the universal USB-C port.

The AirPods Pro employ Bluetooth 5, the latest standard, which offers fast transfer speeds,
longer battery life and a theoretical range of up to 800 feet. In practice, the AirPods Pro kept
a steady connection with my OnePlus 6 smartphone when I walked to the other side of the
office, but they cut out once I rounded a corner and put a wall between the earbuds and
phone.

Bottom line

The AirPods Pros are better than the AirPods in almost every way.

The new sweat-proof design looks better and fits more securely in your ear, sound quality
has been slightly improved, and the highlight feature — active noise cancellation —
effectively reduces ambient sounds (just don't expect a miracle). Add everything we loved
about the original AirPods — seamless pairing, a strong Bluetooth connection and supreme
comfort — and we have no reservations naming the AirPods Pros the best wireless earbuds
available today.

But that could soon change. Battery life and sound quality are areas where rival earbuds
already top the AirPods Pro. If Sennheiser, Sony, or Master & Dynamic can close the gap in
other areas, then they'll put up a serious fight against Apple's buds. Until then, the AirPods
Pro are a must-buy for iPhone users (who have $250 on hand) and a strongly recommended
pair of earbuds for everyone else.

EXCLUSIVE | MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS ISTE to Acquire EdSurge, in

Move to Nonprofit

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 8 November 12, 2019

By Jeffrey R. Young and Stephen Noonoo Nov 6, 2019

E
Betsy Corcoran at Fusion 2019

EdSurge is joining the ranks of nonprofit newsrooms. Today the International Society for
Technology in Education (ISTE) announced that it has agreed to acquire EdSurge, in a move
that leaders of both organizations say will provide a stronger financial base to continue to
produce EdSurge’s journalism, research and other services about the intersection of
technology and education.

EdSurge, based in Burlingame, Calif., was founded in 2011 as a venture-backed, for-profit

news organization. It has raised more than $8

million from a mix of investors, including edtech

stalwarts Reach Capital and GSV Capital, along

with Chinese juggernaut TAL Education. Overthe years, the startup also received millions in
grants from nonprofits and foundations, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, NewSchools
Venture Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to produce stories and hold
convenings on various topics impacting the future of education.

The Arlington, Va.-based ISTE, meanwhile, is a 40-year-old nonprofit membership

organization of more than 25,000 educators, best known for its large annual conference and
expo on edtech. The organization already publishes blogs, books and journals, but it has
been interested in providing more “real-time news and information” to members, says Richard
Culatta, ISTE’s CEO.

Betsy Corcoran, CEO of EdSurge, says the move to a nonprofit organization will be a better
fit for the company’s mission of providing independent news and information to those in
education, and it will open up more opportunities for funding from foundations, which in some
cases are

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 9 November 12, 2019

restricted in how they can support for-profit efforts. “What this arrangement gives us is an
opportunity to focus on the work—not just focus on paying the bills, not just focus on
survivability,” she says. The news comes on the heels of a similar announcement by the Salt
Lake Tribune, the first major U.S. newspaper to transition itself to a nonprofit model.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year, and ISTE expects to hire most of
EdSurge employees as staff members. Neither CEO disclosed the price of the transaction.
However, Culatta said in an interview that EdSurge shareholders will not receive any return
on their investment, and that outside organizations are providing support for the transition.

In a recent vote, ISTE’s board—which is primarily comprised of educators elected from its
member base—approved the sale unanimously following a vetting process. “We wanted to
make sure, first of all, that we could support an enterprise like EdSurge,” says ISTE board
president Bill Bass, a district innovation coordinator in Missouri. Bass adds that the board
looked at whether the organization could support the work EdSurge

does and its headcount, which numbers about 30 employees. “There’s always risk involved,
but we weighed those risks carefully.” ISTE has 60 on its staff.

Readers of EdSurge articles and newsletters should expect no change. EdSurge’s editorial
staff is staying intact, with managing editor Tony Wan leading the six-person newsroom in
accordance with the EdSurge ethics policy. Corcoran says she will join the senior leadership
of ISTE. “I will be spending a big portion of my time making sure that we do this integration in
a way that, number one ... really delivers on the mission, really keeps the journalism strong
and really provides great value for everyone,” she says.

Culatta says that the plan is to work together with leaders at EdSurge to figure out “the right
organizational structure that supports the work.”

The EdSurge name isn’t disappearing—it will be retained for newsletters, along with the
website and archives. “I don’t think it would make a whole lot of sense for us to take away
from the brand that people know and recognize,” says Culatta.

Other changes, including those to staff roles and possible headcount reductions, have yet to
be determined. “Any time when you look at combining teams and roles, there’s always the
chance that there are redundancies,” Culatta says. “Those are questions that we’ll have to
take thoughtfully.”

How They Met

ISTE has been an organization with a reputation for moving slowly. It offers a range of
services, but its annual flagship conference has by far been the most popular.

Then in 2017, Richard Culatta became the group’s CEO, promising to expand and rebrand
the association.

Culatta made his name in government, serving in the U.S. Department of Education under
President Barack Obama as director of its Office of Educational Technology and then as the

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 10 November 12, 2019

chief innovation officer for the state of Rhode Island. In both positions, he sought to move
things quickly, living up to his nickname “Chief Impatience Officer.” In a 2017 interview with

EdSurge, he said the nickname was even on his business card at one point earlier in his
career, and stressed the value of what he calls “thoughtful” impatience. “It doesn’t mean just
randomly run down the street, but there are approaches that you can use to be thoughtfully
impatient,” he said at the time. “Yes, we could take six weeks in order to do this, but could we
do the same thing in two? Literally asking that question sometimes is enough to get us
moving.”

Early in his tenure at ISTE, Culatta and his staff brainstormed his new organization’s weak
spots. Among them: the organization had no outlet for real-time news reporting, and no
strong focus on higher education. Building out those capabilities internally was one solution.
Acquiring an organization doing similar work was another.

“We looked at a number of organizations and, not surprisingly, EdSurge came very quickly to
the top of the list,” Culatta says. Shortly after, he called Corcoran to discuss the idea—and
even toured the EdSurge offices in 2017—but talks petered out. “It just wasn’t right from an
EdSurge standpoint. The timing didn’t work out.”

At the time, EdSurge was attempting to diversify

its revenue streams by rapidly trying various initiatives. A national conference in the Bay
Area, called Fusion, was conceived. A sponsored content division was beefed up and an
experiment in offering a matching service around edtech purchasing, called Concierge, was
attempted and later abandoned, slimming staff.

Plenty of things have gone well, of course. EdSurge focused on newsletters before they
became a trendy way to engage with audiences, and its website has jumped ahead of many
of its more established edtech news competitors in traffic rankings. For her part, Corcoran, a
former journalist at Forbes, The Washington Post and Scientific American, says she is proud
of the impact the company’s journalism has had, and that the teacher voices that EdSurge
has shared over the years in the form of op-eds and columns will continue.

But EdSurge’s challenges in finding a sustainable revenue model is typical of media

organizations smaller than mammoth newsrooms like The New York Times but larger than
scrappy blogging operations—especially as costs began to outpace revenue, Corcoran says.
“There is not great

sustainability for people who are in the middle,” she notes. Back in 2011, Corcoran looked
into founding EdSurge as a nonprofit but found the path toward starting a venture-backed,
for-profit company more straightforward.

EdSurge’s most recent round of funding came in December 2018, when earlier investors
joined with a few new organizations in a $2.5 million round. Some of that went to developing
a new market analysis subscription product aimed at investors and edtech executives,
EdSurge Intelligence, an effort that is now on pause and that Corcoran says could still be
revived in the future. “I think it’s deeply needed,” she says.

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 11 November 12, 2019

Conversations with ISTE resumed this year under what Culatta called a “tight timeline.”
EdSurge also attracted interest from “a number of people” for possible acquisition, says
Corcoran, though she declined to name them. From a mission and vision standpoint, the
ISTE acquisition was certainly fortuitous, although it did not come with a huge price tag. “I
would have loved it if I could have just said, ‘Here, we’ll just write a big check and buy
EdSurge,’” Culatta says. “It’s not an option when you’re a nonprofit, at least one

that works the way that we do where we don’t have a large reserve other than our emergency
reserve, which by policy, I’m not allowed to touch.”

Like many nonprofits, ISTE balances its budget each year, reinvesting surplus revenue back
into the organization. From 2014 to 2017, the latest year for which tax documents are publicly
available, ISTE’s revenue has grown each year. In 2017, it reported north of $16 million in
revenue —two-thirds of which came from the annual conference—with a surplus of nearly
$1.9 million after expenses.

In addition to its annual conference, ISTE also publishes books and a pair of research
journals. It offers a collection of graduate-level courses for educators known as ISTE U and a
certification program based on a collection of education standards it produces. And, while not
quite a news organization, it produces a magazine for members called Empowered Learner.

All that’s to say, ISTE doesn’t have much experience in digital news publishing. But Culatta
says he’s committed to preserving EdSurge’s mission. “It is important that we

remain with this neutral point of view for the journalism,” he says, “and that the teams feel
able to write and report on work that’s happening anywhere in the field, including the stuff that
we’re doing at ISTE.”

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 12 November 12, 2019

A Teen’s Guide To Privacy

How to be a private public person as you’re figuring out how to be an

adult.

By Lam Thuy Vo and Caroline Haskins

This is part of a BuzzFeed News package on schools and social media surveillance.

Schools around the country are buying surveillance systems that monitor almost everything
teens do on their school and personal social media accounts.

Often, rather than treating students as three-dimensional people facing a variety of

challenges — including fear about school shootings, bullying, harassment, depression, and
anxiety — school administrators assume that teens have no digital rights and resort to
surveilling them. What’s worse, the adults surveilling teens often have no grasp on the culture
they consume. As a result, teen conversations can read as completely foreign to any adults
watching them.

There are apps that allow teens to report other teens to school officials, services that scan
social media for threats, and software that monitors everything students do on school
computers and produce in emails, chats, and documents. It’s a lot of confusing systems to
navigate.

What does this all mean for how you should behave online?

We talked to dozens of teens, schools administrators, security officers, and experts and
found some of the advice below to be the most helpful. This isn’t necessarily a step-by-step
guide, but instead some ways to think about your online habits.

Know your audience

Often, when we post anything online, we don’t know exactly who it may reach. We have a
nebulous understanding at best of what it actually means when a post is “public” or “private.”

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 13 November 12, 2019

Across social media platforms, there are many small things that determine who sees your
post. Your privacy settings, which let you choose if a post is public or private, are just one of
these things.

You also need to think about whether you use your real name on social media, tag your
friends or your school, enable your location settings, or use certain hashtags for events like
prom or your homecoming game. All these bits of information factor into who gets to see your
content and whether it appears when people search for content. Also, think twice before
posting about being in a certain place at a certain time, especially when you’re still at that
location.

Also, don’t link any of your personal social media accounts with your school email address. If
you do this, notifications and direct messages will be pulled into your school’s digital system
and possibly monitored.

And if you’re concerned about what adults will think or say when they read your posts,
consider making a “burner” or alternate account with stricter privacy settings for your most
sensitive posts — or anything you fear could be taken out of context.

With regard to school email and school computers: Anything you search, type, look at, save,
or download on a school computer could be read by someone who works for the school.
Assume that anything you type, send, save, or upload on a school-associated Google G
Suite or Microsoft 365 account will read by a teacher or a stranger.

Know the ground rules

Many of the teens that we talked to were caught 0ff-guard when they or their friends were
punished for making bad jokes or exaggerating in posts. Often, students didn’t know their
school’s online code of conduct. Sometimes, it was because the school actually didn’t have
any clear rules for online behavior.

Research these rules and note what your school admins consider off-limits. If they don’t have
a set of guidelines for you, ask them for some. But generally, it’s safe to assume that you
shouldn’t talk about sex, drugs, or alcohol or send links to porn on any school devices, with
school email accounts, or on public-facing social media accounts.

In the absence of clear guidelines, it may also be helpful to apply IRL rules to your online
conduct. If it doesn’t fly in a classroom, it likely won’t online either. So use any profanity with
caution and definitely don’t cuss in school emails, documents, calendar events, chats,
spreadsheets, or slide presentations. Also, if you think your school filters emails and
documents, do not assume that adding a space or asterisk between characters will let
profanity bypass a filter. Words like “f u ck” or “f*ck” may still be flagged.

Your words will always be out of context

You may have a dark sense of humor. You may like to beef on Twitter or Instagram. In your
online world, you always have a lot of context of whom you’re talking to and who’s in on the
joke. But always assume that adults will not get what you meant.

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com

GAB’er Page: 14 November 12, 2019

Adults often see posts out of context. They don’t live in your world. They don’t have the
conversations that you have with your friends. They may not listen to the same music, watch
the same shows, or read the same stuff as you do. That means they’re prone to
misunderstanding the stuff you post online.

And if you do make a mistake and post something dumb or misguided, the lack of context will
only make things worse. Our best advice is to be very, very careful about anything
adversarial that you post.

Be cautious when making any jokes on a public social media account associated public
social media account associated with your birth name that mention “murder,” “shooting,” or
any other language that, when taken out of context, could refer to act of violence. You may
be in on the joke, but adults may not be. And in general, think twice before you beef online.

The internet should not be your journal

You need to process your life, and you may use the internet as a space to express your
feelings. But that can come with pitfalls.

Do any creative projects — including personal poetry, expository writing, etc. — in a journal
or on your personal computer, using your personal Google Drive, Microsoft 365 account, or a
native text document tools like Notes or TextEdit. If you want to share your work with a
teacher or someone from school, consider printing it out or sharing it with the other person’s
personal email. And it may make sense to share your problems in person and your solutions
online.

Also, build relationships with trustworthy adults offline. If you’re having a hard time mentally
or emotionally, it’s best to be able to approach an adult you trust when you feel comfortable
doing so, rather than being caught off-guard when a teacher reads something in a document
or an email. If you approach the adult, the power is in your hands.

Contact GAAB at our Website: http://applebyters.com