What is digital footprint?
Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one’s unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications manifested on the Internet or on digital devices.It includes the websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit to online services. Digital footprints can be classified as either passive or active.
Data trail you unintentionally leave online. For example, when you visit a website, the web server may log your IP address, which identifies your Internet service provider and your approximate location. While your IP address may change and does not include any personal information, it is still considered part of your digital footprint. A more personal aspect of your passive digital footprint is your search history, which is saved by some search engines while you are logged in.
Data that you intentionally submit online. Sending an email contributes to your active digital footprint, since you expect the data be seen and/or saved by another person. The more email you send, the more your digital footprint grows. Since most people save their email online, the messages you send can easily remain online for several years or more.
Everyone who uses the Internet has a digital footprint, so it is not something to be worried about. However, it is wise to consider what trail of data you are leaving behind. For example, understanding your digital footprint may prevent you from careless sharing of information, since the message might remain online forever. It may also lead you to be more discerning in what you publish on social media websites. While you can often delete content from social media sites, once digital data has been shared online, there is no guarantee you will ever be able to remove it from the Internet. With students spending countless hours online both while in class and at home, teachers and students need to understand the concept of a “digital footprint.”
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How to manage digital footprint as an educator
In a world where anything created online can be copied, pasted, and sent to thousands of people in a heartbeat, privacy starts to mean something different than simply guarding personal information. On the positive side, this culture of sharing holds tremendous promise for people to express themselves, collaborate, and find support for their ideas and interests. However, the ease of online disclosure also poses risks. A funny picture, or a certain post can resurface years later. Something originally sent to a friend can be sent to a friend’s friend, and so on. That’s how secrets become headlines and how false information spreads fast and furiously – to students, colleagues, employer, or the public at large.
We all hear tales of how people lose jobs because of things they post online. Making sure you post appropriately online is especially important for teachers, as children, parents and employer will search the internet to find information about you.
Here are tips from John Parkin:
- Google yourself. If you haven’t done so, it is useful to do this regularly to see what information is available to people searching for you online. You can then take steps to remove any details you don’t want to be shared.
- Check your privacy settings.. It is worth spending time looking at the privacy settings you have on accounts such as Instagram and TikTok. Privacy settings can often be a bewildering topic, but the South West Grid for Learning have produced some excellent guides to social media privacy settings. You might want to make your posts private so only friends and family can see your photos, videos and comments.
- Have conversations before problems arise. It is worth talking to your friends and family about not posting anything which could be embarrassing before anything goes wrong!
- Know where to get help. Social networking websites should help you if you wish to have content removed. They usually clearly signpost how you can report inappropriate content, but the South West Grid for Learning website has some useful guidance on this too.
- Change your display name. When you set up social media accounts, you may want to use a nickname or just part of your real name. This will help stop parents and pupils searching for you online and asking to be your friend!
Educators power of active digital footprint to learners
Publishing a blog and posting social media updates are another popular ways to expand your digital footprint. Every tweet you post on Twitter, every status update you publish on Facebook, and every photo you share on Instagram contributes to your digital footprint. The more you spend time on social networking websites, the larger your digital footprint will be. Even “liking” a page or a Facebook post adds to your digital footprint, since the data is saved on Facebook’s servers.
The advantages of a digital footprint and how to increase your digital footprint should be a major teaching focus so that students can see the benefits of acting responsibly online. Examples of professionals who have developed their digital footprint to gain employment and widen their professional networks must be acknowledged and explored. The teacher as responsible online user to learner is the ideal role model.
Educators should make a habit of sharing educational information on their social media pages as well as other platforms. Sharing content on careers or subject content will help the learners who are fond of online to relate with what the learn in the classroom. This will create a continuity of learning outside classroom as well as teach learners to use the social media responsibly. Use of appropriate hashtags when sharing information. Lastly maintain a blog on educational content where you can share on your social media pages.
Tips on information sharing on social media by Stephen Mosley
- Track student work over the course of the year. Take pictures of the progression of a student project or track their learning.
- Use it to post homework. Ask them to write about the significance of a posted photo — perhaps a map, person, or document.
- Share classroom news with parents and faculty. Showcase student work.
- Remind students of upcoming class events.
- Create out of class study groups using specific hashtags. Give the group a question and ask each member to contribute to the hashtag.
- Flip the classroom by posing questions and asking the students to contribute. Students will be ready to discuss the questions in class.
- Send out an occasional extra credit question.
- Share field trips or extracurricular activities.
- Create a tweet as a literary character. Give the students a topic and asks them to tweet as the character would.
- Create a tweet as a historical character. Give the students a current event and ask them to tweet as a historical figure would have.
- Use Instagram to feature a student of the week.
- In language class, use Snapchat to take a picture of an item and label it in the appropriate language.
- Take videos of real life examples of the content as a study guide or ask students to identify the video based on the content.
- Ask students to annotate an image provided by you, identifying key elements on a map or a picture.
- Use Twitter for extended office hours. Advise students that they can tweet you at certain times of the day.
- Use Twitter to take a poll using a certain hashtag.
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