Gosh the assignment this week brought me back to those online identity presentations I’d get in elementary school that I always kind of dreaded. Like I get it, don’t post pictures you don’t want the world to see, be conscious that anyone on the internet can find information about you, etc, etc. Back then I think that social media was still a relatively new thing (correct me if I’m wrong, I was only eight years old), but now social media and having an online presence is a very acceptable and expected thing. I mean come on look to your left, look to your right, one of the people next to you is a micro influencer (or at least trying to be). As I look toward graduation in the next year, I’m growing more aware of what things make me marketable in the workplace and what things definitely do not. On top of that, I’m going to be a teacher… for tweens and teenagers… I definitely don’t need my future students finding things on the internet of me that I don’t want them to see. I’m growing to be very conscious of what you can find online of myself, but here are a few things I’ve learned this week:
- What does a digital portfolio look like? – Of course this can look like things to different people and different projects, but I already have a general “home” website if you will that I made that’s actually home to this website as well as my website for HIST 299, but I never know what to do with it. I took a look at Dr. McClurken’s digital portfolio and saw that he had organized it with links to his book, classes and student projects, recorded presentations, and links to his other online ventures. I did take a listen to his podcast appearance in which he discussed his US History in Film class since I’m considering taking it next semester, so thanks for the insight Dr. McClurken. I learned what this could look like for me when making my digital portfolio especially in terms of considering what work could be showcased in this platform that I couldn’t do on a generic resume.
- Be aware of what comes up on a search engine – I read Danah Boyd’s blog post about “controlling your public appearance” and I didn’t realize that things like a Facebook profile automatically pop up as one of the first things upon a Google search of someone. Also, I think I already assumed this, but video and audio can also be searchable, so anything you say in a video can be searched and then associated with your online persona. I think this article just reminded me even more so to be aware of what I’m putting on the internet and what can be associated with myself.
- You are different versions of yourself on the internet – In addition to Boyd’s blog, I read Bonnie Stewart’s “Digital Identities: Six Key Selves of Networked Publics.” One of the points she was making that really stuck out to me was that online you have a brand and a “niche” that is formed and constructed by your contributions to your online presence. It’s important to be aware of this because it’s what sets you apart to audiences or prospective employers.
- Blogging is cool! – Dan Cohen discusses in “Professors, Start Your Blogs” how blogging has been associated with people in their early-twenties and not in the professional, scholarly way that he’s advocating can exist. I think that this same stigma is associated with blogging to a certain degree, like I’ve heard some discourse online about the rise of Substack as a platform for digital creators, but I think there is some good to found even within fun blogs that your average twenty-year-old writes, honestly I’m just glad to see young people (myself included) can engage with “long” form content compared to the 15 second format of popular platforms like TikTok. But what Cohen is advocating for in his post is that blogs can be scholarly because you don’t have to write in a casual or comedic way. There is a space on the internet that can be home to these more scholarly topic focused blogs. My major takeaway I got from this article is that I should start blogging more on my personal website because it not only documents what I am learning and thinking, but it also brings me to my last point;
- Students need to learn how to create a digital space for themselves – this is something that I’ve wrestled with as I’ve gone through my history and education programs at Mary Washington as I’ve started to think about what kind of teacher I want to be and Gardner Campbell discusses in “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure.” It advocates for students to basically have a website for their work and this would teach them not just digital skills and what goes into making a website but also what goes into have a digital identity. They’re mainly talking about for college students in this article, but with high schoolers and even middle schoolers having more digital knowledge than ever before I think this is a tool worth considering in my own teaching.
