Final Reflection

In what ways have you grown as a professional while taking this course? How can you use the knowledge gained to increase your leadership within the corporation?

While taking this course, I have refined my digital knowledge and taken time to delve into tools that I had just briefly worked with before. I have also taken a closer look at PLNs and was surprised at how many different PLNs I tap into frequently and from-time-to-time.

Both of the final projects created for this course are being used with teachers in my school. The symbaloo is embedded on the school web page and the instaGrok presentation is available 24-7 as a My Big Campus bundle. My Big Campus is a tool I train teachers about.

Just yesterday, our corporation tech committee met and discussed the SAMR model. While many members were being newly acquainted with this model, I felt as if I had a good handle on where or director is wanting us to move.

Digital Footprints

Reflect on your own digital footprint. What search results are returned if your name is Googled? How can you make your footprint positive (as opposed to neutral or nonexistent)? What role can we play in making sure our students have a positive footprint?

When searching for my own digital footprint, I was amazed how much information I could locate by going from site to site. Information from over 10 years ago is still online. Information I had no idea other people had posted was also lurking there. 
White Pages revealed that 44 people in Indiana have my same name and many are in the same age group. If someone knows I am an educator or the city in which I live, then it becomes easier to follow the correct person's footprints. 
Here are just a few of the "prints" I have left behind:

• Blogs I created for a collaboration with a professor at IUPUI and for PBS, as well as classroom blogs and websites
• Awards -Teacher of the Year for ICE (Indiana Computer Educator), Indiana Library Foundation, Armstrong Educator, grants awarded
• Photos from education awards and activities such as student groups and being a judge in a spelling bee
• Minutes from school board meetings were I was recognized
• Addresses and phone numbers for schools were I have been employed
• The church I attend
• Listserv messages

While I knew Facebook would pop up, I hadn't thought about the other social media footprints from Twitter, and Pinterest. 

Anyone who has ever searched a person's name knows that a search soon reveals a person's age, family member names, neighbors, address, and even a Google map of the neighbor where the person lives.

from http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/tag/digital-footprint

Creating a positive digital footprint is intentional. Your digital footprint is your personal brand. Consider which social media to participate in and think carefully about what is posted. Be sure to read, re-read, and edit posts. Think about what images and video you want associated with your name. Like the image above states, "Overload Google with a long tail of good stuff." It may sound hokey, but never post anything you would be ashamed for your grandmother to see, and if you can't say something nice, don't say it.

We are role models to our students. How many students have ever searched for their teachers online? Having a positive digital footprint is important. A great lesson for middle school students can be located at The Teaching Channel (https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-digital-footprints). A teacher has his students look at his own footprint before engaging in a group project, The Trillion Dollar Footprint, from Common Sense Media, (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/trillion-dollar-footprint-6-8).