Of Digital Footprints and Other

Wow, talk about eye opening and the big difference between knowing about and actually considering and using. Its been an interesting and thought provoking 2 weeks so far in my Social Media course.

Be careful, be wise, be far sighted, consider before you post: are watch thoughts I've encountered a lot in the readings for this past week.
Its tough interacting with an entity that has a longer memory than you do, and may someday misuse or misrepresent your communications. I guess that is also the pessimistic manner of looking at interactions with social media.
I have never spent so much time and effort googling or Pipling or yahooing myself in my life and I am almost starting to feel narcissistic. I didn't find much, and thankfully I can say what I found does not reflect poorly on me or on my Christian walk of life. But the fact that I didn't find much also puts me in the dim bulb category I think. I am beginning to come to terms with the idea that I should have a "Lampstand" presence in all the parts of my life, physical and electronic. One of these days I guess I will "hatch" on twitter, and post a pic of me as well as update the profile information. I admire some of the descriptions I have seen other use and will unabashedly beg, (silently), borrow (without returning) or face it, (outright steal) use some of their ideas.

I like the way that Richardson (Footprints in the Digital Age) puts this "....and communicate, collaborate, and work collectively with these networks.  And we must do this not simply as a unit built around "Information and Web Literacy." Instead, we must make these new ways of collaborating and connecting a transparent part of the way we deliver curriculum from kindergarten to graduation."
I can think of two instances in my experience that relate to this.

1. Can you remember typing class taught through the business department in high school? (Perhaps I am dating myself a bit). We more general students got to use the old electronic IBM typewriters while the business students used the new Xerox (I think) machines that had a 1 line memory. But the point is that typing was taught as a course in an of itself. Today, I teach grade nine students and typing is still a curriculum part, but now it is a skill taught as part of something else. I guess there still needs to be time given to teach the specific skill but now it has a context and a purpose in the school setting.
2. Can anyone remember giving instructions in a lesson that amount to: "go and search for something on the internet"? As an IT guy at my school, I get to see how other instructors use technology resources to help teach the students. One point of contention on my part is that instructors need to make sure that students can both use the technology tool and also have a plan for how to use the tool and more than that, how to use it well. I was surprised by my grade 11 class, who it seems had not before seen the advanced search function on Google (under Options after beginning a Google Search).

Now I teach typing in order to help my students survive in a digital input world (though I hear that windows 10 has some good speech recognition apps built in) and before I gave out the research assignment, I spent time instructing on how to search and use that advanced function. I am starting to think about the day that I might instruct students in how to use blogging or tweets to journal and share their learning with others in the classroom and outside.