Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Digital Citizenship
With reading all of the assigned articles, I found that they all had the same message: What you post today, can affect you tomorrow!The New York Times article "They loved your GPA...", was probably the most insightful one of all because it gives examples of the negative consequences which have already take place when a person posts something inappropriate. All three of the articles had something different to add to the topic of maintaining a positive digital tattoo,but none of the information was really new to me because I have known for a long time about employers and schools looking at personal profiles. I personally think that we should be held accountable for what we say and write, whether it be on a piece of paper or on our blogs; for better or for worse, pictures can be worth a thousand words, and if there is something you wouldn't want to be caught doing, don't take a picture of yourself doing it! It's all about using your common sense!
Facebook is the only social network site to which I am an account holder, and I always make sure that my posts will not offend anyone. I don’t really remember what or who made me be as cautious as I am about what I post online but personally I already make sure that I don’t post things that I will later regret. I know I could further improve my personal profiles. I already try to make sure that the few pictures which I post to Facebook are ones which I would not be embarrassed to show people like my parents, but looking back on past posts I realized that I have to be careful with the things that I am tagged in. Despite the repercussions are previous posts may have, I think pages like Facebook which allow us to go back and look at previous posts give us a chance to see how much you have (or haven’t) changed, the downfall is of course is the fact that it isn’t private like a diary. The only downfall to always have to look over your shoulder and not really allowing to fully express your emotions (not that everyone has to know how much you dislike long lines at Disneyland).
When it comes to teaching my future students about how to create and maintain a positive digital tattoo, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with instilling a little bit of fear in students by warning them about the consequences that come with posting inappropriate pictures, comments, etc. Additionally, I think the way we should give our students examples of how to appropriately address others online, how to set privacy settings, and also give them the “good profile” versus the “bad profile” example. Kids are extremely smart, and it will be our jobs to teach them how to think critically about the information which they will encounter, and I think that we should emphasize the need for them to use those same critical thinking skills they use when they are analyzing a text or website, and apply them to when they are online.
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Hi Elizabeth, I'm like you in that I have always known that what is posted or shared online is not private at all and I have always been cautious with social media websites. I share the same ideas that people should be held accountable for what they willingly post. But as far as employers/ universities having access to information that was not voluntarily shared is a bit concerning, for example, medical records and previous addresses. It just seems a bit invasive. I like that you said you don't see anything wrong with instilling a little bit of fear to show the consequences of a negative online presence,because that is what it is: scary. It can come back to haunt them years down the line and what was once a mindless, silly post is now determining their chances of college and their future. I think that like at Colgate University, in the NY Times article, there should be a policy where if the university or employers plans to use information retrieved online against you, then they should give you an opportunity to explain/clarify the situation. This way, they're not solely judging profiles. I agree that it would be beneficial for students to apply critical thinking skills to their online usage and that as Educators, it is partly our responsibility to teach them the positives and negatives of their digital tattoos and be a guide to them in creating a positive image to benefit their future opportunities.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post. I think it is awesome that you are cautious about what you post online. I think that more people should have your perspective about what gets posted online. It keeps people out of situations they don't want to get themselves into. They don't want to worry about a company finding a picture of them and then not getting hired, then they should simply not post the picture. I think it is important to make sure that your students understand the importance of maintaining a positive digital footprint, so if scaring them a little about it does the trick then I think it is okay. It might take that "scare" for them to realize that this topic of a digital footprint is not something to brush off your shoulder. It should be taken seriously.