I saw firsthand just how important it is to monitor your digital footprint. When I was completing my teaching practicum with a grade 7 class, we were in the computer lab where I saw a few students on facebook. I asked if they were supposed to be on that site and they said no, but were trying to search my name up! I was petrified at the thought of them finding me and looking at pictures and posts that I created over the past years. I immediately changed my name on this site and made sure that my privacy setting was set high so it would be impossible for students to search my name. It really opened up my eyes and ever since this incident, I am more aware of my actions and extremely careful on what I post.
I think it is very important for us educators to promote responsible digital citizens and to be aware of your digital footprint. Just a few months ago I introduced my class on how to be responsible digital citizens. I mentioned this in a previous discussion post and will briefly mention it here. I showed the class a padlock, permanent pen, toothpaste and a bar of soap. The padlock represents the need for a strong password for different sites, the permanent pen represents everything you put online is there forever, the toothpaste represents once you put information out there it is hard to get back in and the bar of soap means to keep your search results and text clean. I believe the students have a better understanding now. With this day and age, all my students are on Instagram and have Snap Chat and they need to make sure they are following the rules on how to be responsible digital citizens.
What I don’t think most teenagers know is the privacy policy of Snapchat. According to Hernandez (2016), “Your content might be shared to a wider audience.” Snapchat has the right, under their privacy policy, to share your pictures or videos to other users without you being fully aware. This makes sense. I sometimes get updates from Snapchat asking me to watch a video of a crazy storm hitting Texas (uploaded by users) or to watch a mash-up video of posts from people around the world at a sports match. Do these people know that their video whom they sent to their friends are now being viewed by millions of people around the world? What about taking a screen shot of a picture that supposedly will self destruct once viewed? Do teenagers know that friends can take a picture of the picture being sent? I don’t think they know the ramifications of their actions. It’s important to educate our students on being responsible digital citizens, this will allow them to think twice before they post or send something over the internet. I tell my students that what you post now at your age, can haunt you down the road when you are applying for jobs as most companies now will search your name on the internet. Even if you write something as a teenager that you are not proud of later down the road, it still can affect you as an adult and your career.
One thing that I need to be more aware of and to teach my students is the use of copyright. It’s one thing to cite sources in the information they use for reports, but it’s another to give credit for an image they may use found on the internet.
Hernandez, 2016. Oh, snap! Here’s six sneaky Snapchat secrets you might not have heard. Retrieved from: http://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/2016/02/02/oh-snap-heres-six-sneaky-snapchat-secrets-you-might-not-have-heard-of/