Managing And Protecting Digital Identities

It started with some tweets.

"You are a vile human being!"

"I can't believe you are allowed to say the things you do."

"I want you dead."

I was hurt, confused and shocked. What had I said or done to make people say these things to me? And they came in a flood. Over and over for several days, several years ago.

Then I started doing some searching of my name. To my surprise there was a person who had the same name as me who holds many hateful and racist beliefs. These tweets were the result of some press coverage he was getting being denied entry to several countries. Many people were coming to Twitter, searching for his name and my feed was coming up because of the same name, of follower count and engagement levels. Even though I had a clearly written bio and links to my websites it didn't matter.

(I am not linking to this person because he is terrible and doesn't deserve the traffic and I am not including the tweets because the people that sent them made a mistake. Many apologized to me privately and deleted the original tweets. Since then Twitter reached out to me to have me Verified so my profile is more prominent in search so this doesn't happen again. This is why I use my middle initial in everything I do. If you search my name with my middle initial the first few pages of search results are of me. And its why I use my personal brand in everything I do as well.)

Our digital identities are fast becoming, if they haven't already, how we are identified in this 24/7, internet-connected world. For many people that we encounter, both online and off, our digital identity is how we are seen and known. Much of it is within our control but some of it is beyond. Therefore, we have to do all that is possible to take control of our digital identity and manage it constantly.

The same is true for the students we teach. For the vast majority of them their digital identities began with the first photo of them shared at their birth and has and will continue for several years to come. As parents we are in control of not only our digital identities but those of our kids as well. As educators we have an obligation to talk and teach our students how to put their best foot forward in this evolving digital world.

4 Ways To Manage Your Digital Identity

What Can You Find About Yourself Right Now? Have you ever Googled yourself? What do you think you will find? You've read my story and I've heard from countless people similar stories. You never know what is out there, either generated by you or by others. Blog posts, social media posts, images from conferences, articles, videos, you might be surprised at what you will find.

So Google yourself. But don't just stop at the first page of results. Look at the images, videos and news. Also use different variations of your name. Different spellings, middle initials, even narrowing results by location. This can give you a good sense of what is out there already. And if there is nothing you have a clean slate to start from.

And you have to do this often. But why not put the power of search to your advantage. I love Google Alerts for this. I can set up tons of different searches for my name, brand, books, anything really and the results are delivered to my inbox each day.

Take Control Of Yourself! Now that you have googled yourself and seen just what is out there it's time to take control. Some simple things you can do:

• Write a bio-If you don't have one, write one! You never know when you'll need it. And write several different variations. 50/75/100 words are perfect for conference session proposals and social media. Over 100 for anything else you want to use it for. Then you want to use that same bio anywhere there is a place for it. 
• Get a headshot-Don't waste your money on professional headshots (unless you have a photog friend). Your mobile device will take images at high enough resolutions you can get great images. You just need a friend to take the photos for you. And you don't have to make them cheesy. Yes we know you like to climb trees but we just care what you look like. In fact my current headshot I use everywhere is one taken by a dear friend that wasn't even set up as headshot. It just worked out that way. 
• Get a landing page- Set up a personal website or single landing page. About.me is great for this. It's a simple webpage that you can customize with your bio, image and links to anything you want anyone to know about you. 

Now you can use all these across the apps and sites you use like Twitter, your blog, your website, resume, anywhere you want people to find out who you are. And the more you use them, the more they will show up in search. The key is consistency.

Privacy, Privacy, Privacy! Now that you are using these apps and sites you will want to spend time with the privacy settings of each. It's important to know how much of the information you share can be seen and what that service does with your information. Take Twitter for example. You can choose to show or not show your birthday, location or be found by your mobile number. Many of these services also allow third party apps to access your information (Facebook is a great example of this.) You will want to check what apps have access to your profiles and how much. (Maybe its time to revoke access of Farmville from your Facebook page.)

Privacy policies are full of legal jargon but you should know what is happening to your (and students) data, your images and your information before you use anything. (Perhaps we could all learn from a recent app that, if you used it, now has the rights to use your image any time, anywhere, forever, just by loading an image into it.) Review these policies and talk to kids about them too. They need to know how their data, images and information are used both in the classroom and outside.

Share, Share, Share! A great way for you to get going is to not only set up bios and headshots and landing pages but also contribute to the wider body of knowledge. Start a blog and share what you are doing in your classroom, what you are learning and reading or ideas you have. Participating in Twitter chats or anything you post on social media with hashtags can also be a great way to build your digital identity. Did you present at a conference? Post the presentation and/or notes to your website and blog about it! Any thing you create you want to share with the world post it.

The same goes for our students. They need to have the same opportunities as adults to build their digital identities. Those classroom blog posts and comments, make them public. Those digital portfolios, make them public too. Creating a website takes just a few minutes and has become as easy as sending email. Some districts are even purchasing domain names for their students and transferring ownership after they graduate. Several more are giving them their drives and directories as well. All this can be a part of a comprehensive digital citizenship program that teaches students how live the best digital life possible.

Whether we like it or not, the internet is forever. What we post and what we comment on lives on long after we are gone. So while we are here and in control lets do all we can to manage and protect our digital identities. And help our students do the same!

Making The Right Digital Decisions

Recently, my district began a huge initiative to combat bullying/cyberbullying and to help students become more aware of the choices they make both in their face-to-face lives and their digital decisions as well. There is no one right way or right answer that will stop the problems. However, I do believe that the classroom and our schools are the places where tough conversations need to be had.

I have been collecting several resources and I want to share. By no means is this all the stuff that is out there. And some of it may work or may not. The point is to find something (curriculum, activity, website, video, etc) and start having the conversations, not just with students but with teachers, administrators, parents and our communities.

To start, I want to share this powerful video that was recently shared with me. It's all about the choices our kids are faced with everyday and the consequences of their actions.



So besides the interactive nature of the video (which is pretty neat) there are some tough issues here and no doubt these are some of the digital decisions our kids are making each and every day.

How can teachers and schools help? As with most things, education is key. Understanding where kids are in today's Digital Society can be a helpful first step. PBS did a masterful job capturing teen voices in their series, Digital_Nation. You can hear from teens themselves, parents and other experts as they discuss what it means to be a Connected Kid.

There are lots of curricula out there to use in the classroom.You can do a quick search and find lots of free (and paid) stuff. However, I believe one of the best are the lessons and activities from Common Sense Media. They have a full, K-12, free curriculum you can use and adapt to your needs. There are even alignments to the ISTE NETs, AASL, and the English Common Core.

Another way to show students the power their digital footprint has is to check out a great interactive from The Discovery Channel, Your Digital Footprint. In it users are posed with different scenarios and the site shows the impact of that choice and how their image, information and more are recorded and stored. It's more about awareness and understanding than avoidance.

Here are some more just general resources to check out.

• Open Thinking Wiki-Media Literacy-Alex Couros has curated lots of great information on a wide array of digital literacy topics like understanding where information comes from, combating cyberbullying and more. 
• Digital Citizenship Network- One of the best parts of this site are the Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship. There are lots of great links here too. 
• Own Your Space: Keep Yourself And Your Stuff Safe Online-This free ebook from Microsoft is geared toward teens and goes over many different aspects of their digital lives. 

These are just a few resources. I have many more in my Diigo links and you can find that here. I also have a post that I wrote awhile back about Taking Care Of Your Digital Self, that has more ideas on knowing about your online identity.

For me, we need to start having and keep having lots of conversations. Everyday, educators all over the country are asked to use digital tools with kids and increasingly, kids are becoming more and more connected. The earlier we start talking and the more we keep talking, again, not to just our kids but our teachers, administrators, parents and the community, the easier it will be to deal with these digital issues as they arise.

These are some of my favorite resources. What are yours? Or what are you doing to start these conversations where you are? Leave some comments below.

Taking Care Of Your Digital Self

One of the areas of focus for me in my district this year is teaching teachers and students how to take control of their digital identity and turn it into something positive and something they can be proud of. Too often each year students find themselves in situations that could be easily avoided if they understood what a positive digital footprint is and how to manage it. The same thing with teachers. Many times I hear of teachers who flat out avoid any (or make a very strong attempt) to leave no trace on the web. While they might believe this strategy works, in essence it does not. School directories, webpages and others are online. Even kids use Rate My Teachers as a place to vent/praise about educators all over. (Meredith Stewart said it best: Astounds me when teachers/professors only digital presence is Rate My Teachers/Profs page. If you aren't controlling your footprint, others are. From Twitter) 


What she says there is so very important. If you aren't controlling who you are online, some else is or will. And taking control of your digital footprint is something that is so easy to do. Who wants something like this to happen?





So, where do you start?


Google Yourself- Take a few moments and Google yourself. You might have a common name so use different variations. Add your middle name, location or something else that might provide some hits. I had the honor of speaking to a great group of educators this week at the New Literacy Institute at NC State University. One of the activities they were involved in was looking at their digital self and the first thing they did was Google themselves. It was fascinating to watch the reactions across the room as they found information about themselves they didn't know was online or information they they thought was private on Facebook or other social networks. You don't know if you don't Google. And this isn't a one shot deal. Google yourself often to make sure the information that is out there represents you in the way you want. 


Establish A Brand- This sounds complicated but really it is easy as figuring out what name you use across all that you do on the web. My brand is my name (Steven W. Anderson) and my Twitter (@web20classroom). I use the middle initial in my name because my full name is pretty common (doctors, laywers, even an actor, and some not so nice folks). So in searches done on those 2 brands the information comes back to me. The point here is to start using the same identity across multiple services so solidify yourself. And try to use your actual name or a simple variation. 


Get You A Space Of Your Own- You are going to need a place of your own to let people know who you are. I chose to use Twitter and a blog. These are places where you can further establish who you are, what you are about what what you want to say. Those are just two ways. It could be something simple like an About.me page. Again, your are further solidifying yourself on the web. What's great is you can control how much information you put out there and what information you put out there; all in an effort to control your identity. 


Stay On Top Of Things- Google Alerts might just be the best way to keep track of things easily. You set up some keywords to search (so you would do the name you have been using to Google, your brand, blog, Twitter, etc), fill out how often you want to get the alerts, an email address and boom! any page on the web that mentions any of the data you submitted lands in your inbox so you can know who is saying what about you or your brand. 

Those are just a few steps. What would you add? What has worked for you? And some comments below. 

Give It A Ponder...Think Before You Text

There is a really awesome ad campaign out from LG about texting. Aimed at teens, James Lipton (of Inside The Actors Studio fame) asks to "Give It A Ponder" before texting or sending that racy picture. Some of the best information is in the videos. Here is one of my favorites:

Obviously, not for little kids but the message it clear. We really need to be teaching teens to think before they text and post.

Also on the site are links to definitions of cyber-bullying, a Facebook fan page to tell your story, the Twitter feed and more videos.

I would like to see more resources for teachers and kids but this stuff is really good. The humor really speaks to kids and might actually make them think the next time they want to text something stupid.

So grab your beard and head over to Give It A Ponder to see for yourself.

Give It A Ponder