The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

From everything we have learned in this class, we have already established that the internet is a very fascinating and useful resource. There are so many things one can do when “surfing the web” but sometimes those things can get us into trouble. Everyone should be careful about what they put on the internet because anyone can access their personal information.

As educators and professionals, we need to educate our students on proper and appropriate digital citizenship. If they are being introduced to numerous social media websites in the classroom, they should be taught how to correctly post and manage those social media accounts.

So what are the downfalls of students, and others, having numerous social media accounts where they share everything about their personal life? Well for one thing, they share everything there is to know about their personal life. The article Exploring a Teen’s Digital Footprint In 6 Clicks or Less  shows a video on how easily it is for future employers, educators and even people to access students personal lives’ online. What was surprising to me was that the guy first went to their Facebook page and then googled their email addresses and usernames. When he did this, he found so much information! I’ve googled myself before but I have never plugged in my username and email address so I’m kind of nervous/excited to see what pops up (this will happen later on in the blog).

 Photo CC by PRO Thomas Galvez

But what’s so bad about sharing all of this information on social media? Like I said before, future employers and educators literally have access to all of your personal information at the tip of their fingers. They can see every photo you are tagged in, every place you have checked in at, and so much more. If any of these findings are inappropriate it could lead to serious problems with employment and even problems with being accepted to college.

So are there any positives to social media? The answer is yes! There are so many ways to be positive and kind on social media sites. George Couros talked about this in his video “140 Characters of Kindness.” His dog had just passed away and he received numerous replies on Twitter from people he didn’t even know. He was comforted by strangers who cared about his situation. He experienced the positive side of the internet. While we are teaching our students how to appropriately use social media, we should also be teaching them how to be a kind and make a difference on these sites as well.

Finally, I googled myself. I went to images and typed in ‘Tessa Benson Alliance NE’ and found one of my senior pictures but it was actually linked to BHSU, where I attended my freshman year, and pulled up all the scholarship information that I had received that year. I then went to the main google page and it pulled up all of my athletic awards in softball during my high school years. I also found an article from the local newspaper about my friend’s wedding that I was in last year. I thought this was crazy because it included that I was a bridesmaid and also included everyone else that was involved in the wedding party. This just goes to show that anything can be found on the internet and it really doesn’t take a lot of searching to find this information.

I really enjoyed the lesson this week. By watching all of the videos and reading the articles, it really opened my eyes to how important and crucial it is to teach students about proper digital citizenship.