Helping Kids Manage their Digital Footprint

When I browse Facebook, sometimes I'm not proud of my friends in terms of what I see. Do you think that employers are really fooled by you editing cats over your beer cans and raised middle fingers? I don't think so! I believe that teaching kids to effectively manage their digital footprint is absolutely vital- from early on! If nobody ever teaches kids WHO can see what they post on social media and what the consequences can be for these seemingly meaningless posts, how would they know the harm they could potentially be causing their future selves?

I think that a teacher can have an active role in helping students use social media positively, however, I think that if there is an active parent/guardian in the students' life, it is their job to show their child right and wrong in the social media world. I loved Lisa Nielsen's idea of having the child use a Recall App in order to see a word/status cloud. A discussion on how the child and parent feel about what comes up in this cloud of commonly used words and statuses could be very valuable! Most importantly is the parent reminding their child how some of these words/statuses that may seem innocent could be viewed by other adults and therefore potential employers.

In school, helping students use social media effectively can be done by showing students where they can find blogs, Twitter pages or websites on their passions. In my classroom, I have students Tweeting Spanish to me so that I can respond. They know that Señorita Swigart will be seeing their Spanish tweet so they only post appropriate tweets to me... but that doesn't mean that everything on their page is so appropriate.

I think the conversation on whether teens should be using their real names online is very interesting. Reflecting on my personal experience, I have nothing that I am ashamed of on my Facebook page, however, in order that students cannot find me, I do not have my real full name attached to my Facebook. I think to think about controlling one's digital identity and what choosing to use one's real name or not means for that. Should my students use their real names online? If they are posting responsibly, why not?

These topics are incredibly interesting and as a Spanish teacher, I had not thought of having a talk with my students about acceptable/responsible use of social media. However, if I am encouraging the use of social media in order to get involved with Spanish, why shouldn't it be me to start this conversation? Someone needs to do it!