Digital Identity

As we know, society is extremely digital in today's world. Almost everyone has some sort of presence online, whether that is a Facebook page, Pinterest board, LinkedIn profile, or sports statistics. Anytime you post something online, there is a chance that it is easily accessible by the public.

As teachers, we have to be very aware of the concept of digital identity - for our students and for ourselves. When I first started the education program in university I remember in almost all of my education classes, they told us to make our social media accounts private because virtually anything could prevent you from getting a job - whether that's a picture of you with a drink or a picture of you in a bathing suit from vacation. I think this is a common way people discuss the idea of a digital footprint - that it's always negative and there should be a fear around posting things on the Internet. While I do think we need to be conscious of how we're conducting ourselves online, I don't think that fear of not getting a job or fear of something coming back to ruin your life is necessarily the way to teach this concept.

Part of our responsibility as teachers is to teach students how to be good people and good citizens, and this applies as well to them in the digital space. We can still discuss the dangers of posting negative things online (or things that can be perceived as negative), but that doesn't have to be the entirety of the conversation. There is a lesson by Common Sense Education that I think does a good job of teaching digital footprint and the dangers of it, but also gets students to think about the ethics of using digital footprints to assess someone for a job, how they should conduct themselves online, and how things can be perceived - even if that wasn't the intention.

Balance is a tricky part of this conversation, because students need to understand the consequences that a negative digital footprint can have, but fear-mongering has been proven to not help in teaching this concept. If anyone has any ideas for keeping that balance, please feel free to share them!