Footprints on the internet

     This week in class we went over digital footprints ( the kind that are pretty scary). The footprints are basically trails on what is left on phones, text messages, and of course social media. We talked about the tool Teaching Privacy, which basically lets people find your locations through your social media like instagram and twitter #howcreepy. It even includes a chart showing what places your posting from often and at what times of the day. Stalkers have a much easier time than they did 10 years ago, we have to be conscious of the things we do and post you never know whose following you. Our digital footprints are how we are being searched especially when it comes to jobs, 

      The perfect follow up from our class lesson came from 11 Tips for Students to Manage Their Digital Footprints. Since its the trail of everything you do online the tips are actually quite helpful so you don't leave something out there you wouldn't want just anyone to find, It is important you always use your privacy settings and do not over share on your social media. You do not need a million emails keep track and manage the ones you do have, and its good to have a secondary email. Monitor the accounts you actively use and always delete the accounts you don't use anymore. Google yourself sometimes the scariest thing to do, and use your tools to manage your digital footprints. 

     Chapter 1 goes into detail about curation tools such as Symbaloo, Diigo, and Educlipper. Symbaloo provides a consise layout of icons that provide ine-click access to your favorite sites (page 4). Within symbaloo you have a webmix and basically has a bunch of tiles you click an empty one and can add the website of your choice. Diigo you can highlight, comment and add notes which is popular with educators, it works best as a social bookmarker. Educlipper was deigned for the k-12 grades this is why teachers have plenty of control when it comes to students networks an how open and closed they are.

Although I was out sick last week we had a guest speaker via Google Hangout which was Cameron Brenchley. He worked in the White House and operated the twitter account for them which you have to admit is pretty cool. He is now the Vice President at the company Collaborative Communications Group. He was able to answer my question on basically how much pressure was he under and what was the punishment for messed up tweets. He said in the White House the tweets went through a whole line of people before it was even published so it was easy to catch mistakes.

     There are plenty of negatives in the social media outlets facebook is one of the most common used.Your photos could be used in advertisements without you even knowing, well technically it is all in the fine print (that no one reads).Talk about invasion of privacy, they use your name and phone number to see what other sites you’ve been searching on. This way they can be more specific in what ads they want to send your way.  The article 5 Ways Facebook Owns You had some serious eye opening information the worst was a dead girls photo being used on an ad after her death.

     Oversharing on social media has become an epidemic in my eyes, takes a picture post location, Oh having drinks with friends tags the bar, people do not realize how dangerous this is because its just another social norm. Think twice about what you post gives you an insight and what is too much and what can help you, like always checking your privacy settings.  It can set you up for identity theft to even getting robbed and the only one to blame is your fingers for posting it all over your social media and making that info available to everyone on there. What you post can cost you your job and friends if your careless, and scams are never ending but reporting them helps keep your important information safer.