This week we talk about digital footprints. Basically, all the material you need to read/view can be found on the course under Week 4 (see link below). We consider all the warnings about digital footprints (employers, universities, others will check you out) but we also look at the upside: Given we can't hide anymore, and given we will have a digital footprint whether we want one or not, what should be included in student ePortfolios for the world to see?
This compels students to ask questions like, "What/who do I want to be when I grow up?" and "How do I want to present myself to the world?" Also, we (parents and teachers) need to ask ourselves, "What is our role in helping students create public persona?'
Students should be encouraged to include several appropriate items online. They should have school papers, comments from community and board and should start building a public persona. Students should be encouraged to actually search themselves in multiple search engines to see what their name results are. In several cases, their names will come up as other individuals and they need to be aware of what other people with their name are doing. If a future employer is searching them, they want to know before that some of those pages might be referenced in jobs and they need to be able to combat the image. If a student has started using Facebook, they need to log off or have another student they are not friends with search them and make sure what is publicly posted is positive.
With the world they are living in, they need to assume that if they post something online, someone will see it and report it. There are numerous cases in Alaska and the United States of teachers, police officers and other public servants being fired from their jobs over what is posted online that they were sure wasn't going to be seen. Nothing guarantee's privacy online one-hundred percent and we should be prepared for it.
Popular news about how social networks can become your enemy are shown almost every day, and everyone knows about a sad case of cyberbullying ... let them think…if they have the power to do it, how would they change this situations in a positive way? What would they do to have a positive result? What can they do from this day on to avoid having this kind of situations represented in their digital footprints?
This compels students to ask questions like, "What/who do I want to be when I grow up?" and "How do I want to present myself to the world?" Also, we (parents and teachers) need to ask ourselves, "What is our role in helping students create public persona?'
Students should be encouraged to include several appropriate items online. They should have school papers, comments from community and board and should start building a public persona. Students should be encouraged to actually search themselves in multiple search engines to see what their name results are. In several cases, their names will come up as other individuals and they need to be aware of what other people with their name are doing. If a future employer is searching them, they want to know before that some of those pages might be referenced in jobs and they need to be able to combat the image. If a student has started using Facebook, they need to log off or have another student they are not friends with search them and make sure what is publicly posted is positive.
With the world they are living in, they need to assume that if they post something online, someone will see it and report it. There are numerous cases in Alaska and the United States of teachers, police officers and other public servants being fired from their jobs over what is posted online that they were sure wasn't going to be seen. Nothing guarantee's privacy online one-hundred percent and we should be prepared for it.
Popular news about how social networks can become your enemy are shown almost every day, and everyone knows about a sad case of cyberbullying ... let them think…if they have the power to do it, how would they change this situations in a positive way? What would they do to have a positive result? What can they do from this day on to avoid having this kind of situations represented in their digital footprints?