A digital footprint/ tattoo is how you are perceived by others who look for you online. Tattoo is a more accurate description since it is not something easily erased. It can include things from news stories, social media, ePortfolios and more. Things that are online about you could be posted by you or other people and can have a positive or a negative impact on how people perceive who you are. When you consciously post things while thinking about how they impact your digital tattoo, it is intentional. Things like creating an ePortfolio or updating a LinkdIn page can give your digital tattoo a boost.
Think about what you want potential employers, friends, or professors to know about you. Is that what is being broadcast? Your unintentional digital tattoo can come from things that others post about you or posts or comments that you don't think about potential ramifications when posting. You may think a meme is hilarious, but if it is offensive to others and it gets out that you posted it, it can have a very negative impact on your real life.
There are stories all over the news about colleges or programs not accepting a student because of social media or people being let go from their jobs because of inappropriate things that they post. 45% of employers used social media to research job candidates and allowed those results to influence their hirings in 2009. This was up from 22% in 2008 and one can conclude that the percentage has only increased since then (Johnson 2009). This is something that our students should be aware of and should be working to create a positive digital tattoo for themselves in the future.
EPortfolios are a great tool to use to create a positive digital tattoo for yourself. Posting work that you are proud of for others to see can show what you are capable of. Written assignments, blogs, and photos & descriptions of class projects and assignments can be posted on public ePortfolios to improve them. Understanding privacy policies, keeping your social media private, and understanding that anything you put out there in the digital world can be discovered and considered in hiring and acceptance to programs is key. Teaching this to our students and our own children is the best way to protect them from accidental negative impacts of their digital tattoos.
Searching my name in google brings up a lot of things that have nothing to do with me. If I search “Carrie Sue Stephens” I find several obituaries, a twitter account that isn’t mine, and information on the movie/book/musical, Carrie by Stephen King. There is a Carrie Stephens who has a blog about being a pastor’s wife, a Carrie Stephens who creates digital craft images, and an actress with two credits on IMDB. It isn’t until I add “teacher” and “Texas” to the end of the search that information about me comes up. My LinkedIn profile can be found at the top of this search. I have kept it accurate and up to date and I have no problems with this being found by anyone. If I search “Carrie Stephens Trivium” (the name of my school) my school website, edshelf, twitter profile, and donors choose pages. Again, I have nothing on any of these pages that I am concerned about. My maiden name is “Fisher” and search of Carrie Fisher Stephens brings up many Princess Leia related pages and my Twitter account.
The only thing that surprised me is that my ePortfolio did not appear anywhere when I searched. I do have it listed on my LinkedIn page and my Twitter page, but I hoped it would be a more prominent positive impact on my digital footprint. I will have to go into my wix settings and see if there is anything I can do to help this without paying for an account (which is not in my current budget). I do have a Facebook/ Instagram account, but they are set to the highest privacy settings possible. I understand that things there can be shared, but it does not come up when searches are done. I would give myself a score of 3 out of 4 because not much comes up that is actually me.
References
Johnson, Steve. (2009, Nov 9). Digital Footprints: Your New First Impression [video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZjmrJvL_eg
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: nine elements all students should know.
Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
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