Monday, October 29, 2012

4 things you need to know to help your students manage their online reputation

We often hear complaints about what students say and do online, but we often neglect to look into educators helping them manage their online reputation. This infographic is geared toward adults, but it can serve as a great starting point for conversations and activities that educators can engage in with students to help them to establish an active digital footprint that represents who they want to be perceived as online.

1 comment:

  1. I like this graphic and definitely see its usefulness as a public service announcement.

    This is a tougher conversation to have with teenagers than it seems because it's easy to fall into the trap of coming off like a bad 1980s anti-drug campaign.

    Further complicating this is that teenagers tend to have two general attitudes: they're the first to discover something and nobody else knows about it, and they're immortal.

    I've lost count of the number of times students have seemed genuinely surprised that I'm on Facebook and Twitter (because at 35, I spend my nights working on my scrimshaw by whale oil lamp light or something), and it also never fails to slightly amuse me when students discover that their nasty tweets about teachers and administrators have been discovered by those very teachers and administrators (and then they scream and rant about the 1st Amendment).

    As for the attitude that they're immortal, this is similar to drunk driving, driving while texting, doing drugs, etc. Sometimes unless it directly affects them, they don't care or won't listen. Or they'll listen but then default to whatever "It can't happen to me" attitude they have about it.

    The cynical side of me wants to turn around here and say, "Let the bad stuff happen, it's the only way they'll listen," especially considering I don't want to get accused of trying to "control" my students' lives. But that's not a good attitude, because the "bad stuff" can be pretty dangerous as well. So yes, educating about this is necessary but it needs to be more than a warning from adults.

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