As a teacher, I have always tried to separate my personal and professional life. Before taking the MET program at Boise State, I had never uploaded a video to YouTube or joined any social networking sites. I really saw no reason to put myself out there online. My privacy was more important than the personal connections I could make. The people I wanted to converse with knew me personally or I went out of my way to get to know them. Today, I have a YouTube channel and I am enrolled in Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Diigo and LinkedIn. Am I nervous about this? Of course. But I am excited at the possibility of engaging my students in 21st Century education and being up-to-date in the strategies educators use in sharing information and resources. I think connectivism is the way of the future and it is up to me to embrace this new learning pedagogy. The knowledge and collaboration out their on the web truly is a blessing for education.
Koekemoer (2012) states that a digital footprint “refers to your reputation online” (S. 3). It is important to know our individual digital footprint so, using Google, I searched for information about myself. I found I have a very small digital footprint on the web. Other than some pictures of me coaching hockey school, the only things I could find were the social network profiles and YouTube channel I discussed above, and, since I have only put professional content on any of these sites, I am not worried about any negative footprints.This lack of evidence on the web is not all good however. It is similar to a credit score. If you have no record of borrowing money, your credit score is not good - even if you have never had credit problems. The negative of such a small digital imprint is the lack of connections I have in the education (or any other) field - something I hope to change throughout this course and going forward in my professional career. Being that I have a clean slate, my inadequate footprint does offer me the possibility to develop a digital imprint that will not only show my professionalism but also market me for future endeavours.
References
Google images - Advanced search - Free to use or share. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/penbentley/11092069533
Koekemoer, A. (2012). Your digital footprint in a social media world. Retrieved from
http://www.slideshare.net/AntonRSA/your-digital-footprint-in-a-social-media-world
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