What is a Digital Footprint?A digital footprint is the collection of an individual’s history online. “A positive digital footprint can be understood as a ‘personal brand’ that allows others to see your interests, achievements and skills” (Buchanan, Southgate & Smith 2017). A digital footprint is a constantly evolving entity that also requires constant maintenance and reflection.
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Why is it important to create a positive Digital Footprint in your Digital Learning Environment?It is important for teachers to create a professional online presence in order to effectively participate in professional learning networks and digital learning environments. The constantly evolving nature of digital footprints means you need to be up to date with digital tools. The most effective teaching will come when teachers feel confident using these platforms and can facilitate student learning with discussions and inquiry style learning.
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How do we effectively teach positive Digital Footprints to students?Awareness is a key factor in helping students understand and shape a positive digital footprint. Helping students understand that what they do online now may affect their future education and employment opportunities is vital to their education. Watching videos online and discussing the implications of negative actions and perceptions on their futures, are strong ways of getting students to think about their digital footprint. |
Applications in the Classroom and Online Safety
Incorporating different online technologies such as Google Docs for collaboration between students and Facebook for social networking are vital in keeping our students up to date with their learning and in preparing them for their future workplaces. The benefits of developing your own positive digital footprint include learning through collaboration and others throughout the world. Connecting with people in different countries for example, by following them on Twitter, allows you to see the innovative ways they are using technology in the classroom to integrate into your teaching practice.
Basic online safety practices such as making sure passwords are secure, logging out of accounts when using different devices and not sharing personal details online, still need explicit teaching. Ensuring no one else can access and change individual platforms or steal personal information are extremely important areas of teaching in today’s society. With online bullying and identity theft an unfriendly reality, our students need to be prepared and aware of how to prevent these situations from happening.
Basic online safety practices such as making sure passwords are secure, logging out of accounts when using different devices and not sharing personal details online, still need explicit teaching. Ensuring no one else can access and change individual platforms or steal personal information are extremely important areas of teaching in today’s society. With online bullying and identity theft an unfriendly reality, our students need to be prepared and aware of how to prevent these situations from happening.
What does this mean for our students?
The aim is not to stop students posting and interacting online, but to create a sense of mindfulness of those interactions in the present, for the future and to encourage students to harness the positive potential of creating a well-perceived digital footprint. By teaching students to be mindful about who may see their content and what influences it can have on others, will have lasting impacts on their use of digital technologies and therefore their ever-growing digital footprint.
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Further Resources
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