I could not agree with this post more (specifically about blocking kids from these sites in schools.) There are a few teachers at my school that are in the fight to get certain restrictions removed from our school computers! We are not allowed to even access blogs – or the educational groups I belong to. Just like everything else in life, the things we don’t know enough about tend to be the things that scare “us” the most. Instead of keeping an open mind and exploring the new opportunities that social networking, blogging, twittering, and web 2.0 applications can provide for our students, we “block” them before they can use anything. The message we send to kids can be one of “off limits” for all things social on the web, in which they can turn around and sometimes without much guidance from home use these sites unwisely. The children are digital natives who should know how to leave a positive digital footprint behind and be given the chance to learn through school. Too often, the footprints that are left from four years of unwise choices in college or posting something as a young child because you didn’t know better will come back and “kick” them in the pants later on in the job hunting process or ruin a reputation. I think, just like anything in education, it often boils down to common sense and hopefully, people will use it.

Having just discovered your blog, I am excited to get in and read what you have to say (as I am agreeing with most of your views) – thank you!

I’ve passed it on: Have you ever had to answer a colleagues’ or administrators’ question as to why educators need an online identity? http://bit.ly/K4qE7

People now, as always, need a wide variety of knowledge. The online world expands horizons, increases opportunities for learning, and allows the learning to be interactive. The workplace our students will enter will not be one of paper, pencil, markers, chalk, etc. Those tools are replaced with the computer, conferencing (online included), collaboration, and creative thinking. (OK, so creative thinking works with the old tools too…)

You’re spot on… it’s not about doing this in order to get a job. That’s totally the wrong reason to do it, I agree.

As you say, I’m sure you didn’t reply to these posts to garnish your online reputation, just as I didn’t write the post for that reason in the first place. I wrote it, and I assume you responded to it, because we both care enough to commit our thoughts to a public forum for discussion.

The original intention of the post was to suggest that we do what we do because it’s just what we do… but in the process, we do leave a digital trail behind us. As caring educators we are here, you and I, engaging in a discussion about the things we care about, and yes, that will become part of the web’s permanent record. This conversation may turn up in searches many years from now, and people will judge us, rightly or wrongly, by the things they find attached to our digital identities.

What most of the kids we teach don’t seem to fully appreciate is the reach and possible permanence of their online behaviours. In that incident of bullying at Ascham last week for example, the newspaper reports said that the students were “unaware that what they were doing was visible to the public”… this suggests that they may have acted differently had they realised that people could trace their words and actions back to them.

Simply, if you don’t realise people might be watching you, your behaviour is often quite different from that which you do when you realise your behaviour is public (and possibly permanently public!)

So, no, we oughtn’t try to manage our online presence just to get a job, but I do think we ought to try and manage our online presence so that what it says about us is consistent with what we want it to be.

In a post-Google world, like it or not, your digital footprints say an awful lot about you.

Hi Deb,

My questions back to you though would be these…

Why do we have such a large percentage of the teaching profession who, after now having had more than 20 years of ICT opportunities in education, still have not learned the basics of using technology in their daily teaching?

Being expected to embed ICTs into your teaching is not a new idea. Education authorities have been insisting that there be some level of ICT across the curriculum for many years now… After all this time, why are there still so many educators yet to make any serious moves towards doing so?

I’m not suggesting that there aren’t great teachers out there, or that you can’t be a great teacher without technology. I’m simply suggesting that the teachers who can do BOTH well are the ones who will be in the best possible position to add the most value to the classrooms of tomorrow, and the ones I’d want working with me in my hypothetical school. And it is the ones who can do BOTH well that will be leaving a digital trail behind them to demonstrate some evidence of it.