Digital footprint and habits of mind

Flying Kites "Play safe. Fly kites, balloons and model airplanes in wide-open spaces, and particularly avoid power lines. "--unknown

• What is Digital Footprint?
  
  "Digital footprints are traces left by someone's activity in a digital environment. There are two main classifications for digital footprints, passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected about an action without any client activation, whereas active digital footprints are created when personal data is released deliberately by a user for the purpose of sharing info about oneself." -WiKi
  
• What does your digital footprint mean?

People normally feel uncomfortable with being exposed to the public regarding the sides of their personal lives whether they do pleasant friendly chatting or offensive objectionable attack or slander...We don't want the unknown to pay attention to us. So people have different kind of privacy, that should be respected, I believe. Do you think what you typied and put in your cyberspace is your privacy? Do you feel absolute private and safe when sharing your thoughts and ideas with your friends within your virtual community? Well, most of people feel so.

But, watch out this:

"...In good times and bad, people are always looking for jobs. But as more and more people have entered the job market, employers can afford to be more selective. A lot of times the choice comes down to who has the cleaner digital footprint."

" Many private things have become far more public with the internet so close at hand. Rohatinsky said it’s not something of which to be afraid, but it may be something you want to manage. " --Protect your digital footprint

http://www.kutv.com/content/news/local/story/Protect-Your-Digital-Footprint/TVzOV0wc8EybEGZSPSED0g.cspx?rss=991

"I recommend that you start a blog highlighting your professional skills. Write posts on your field to show off your professional knowledge. List your full name at the bottom of your posts. Include links to the positive comments you found. And be sure to list your accomplishments in your bio."

" Companies like ReputationDefender and Reputation Hawk specialize in improving online reputations. These services can be costly. In some cases, you'll pay thousands of dollars. Others charge $30 or so for each post they remove."

"Cleaning up your reputation can take months. So, start now — whether you're job hunting or not."--Your online reputation can hurt your job search
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kimkomando/2009-02-19-online-reputation_N.htmcsp=34

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So digital footprint doesn't sound a relaxed thing after all. But on the other hand, what does it really mean to keep cleaner digital footprint? Do we have to betray who we are to release deliberately active data with the world? What about just honestly being who I am, even though that is passive?

Here, I start to think about this: Do we really know who we are? Or We come to know who we are by the facts that how the others appreciate, evaluate us; how cabaple of us handling troubles and solving problems; how much contribution we do to our family, our work; what kind of friends we have in life circle...and so on. So all these help us to form the picture of who we are. Actually we do not exactly know who we are untill something happens.

Same goes to this question: Who I am in the Internet world? What digital footprint should I leave behind?

• When and where should we be teaching our students about their digital footprint?

-The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. ~Feodor Dostoevski

-Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. ~William James.

Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all. ~Georges Gurdjieff
Again here we go. Habits tell who we are. Regarding teaching students the digital footprint, we definately should train our students to form good habits of using their online tools. It should be started as soon as the students begin to use computers.Say even from K2.

Because people recognize you by your digital footprint within the virtual world regardless of wherever you are in the physical space, we should always miantian our good manners over there, and this automatically relates to our mind habits in the real world.

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Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Vision

Is there such a thing as privacy online?

I have been thinking how people's online behavior look like. There is great freedom over there. Oneself can chat with his/her friends about almost anything. Anyone has the right to post pictures and articles expressing his/her own point of view on any topic prefered.However, It does not seem that there is any restriction on online freedom. What would a resentful office worker say about his boss within his virtual community? What nicknames would some rebellious students give their teachers in the chatting room? What kind of video shows or pictures would a desperate man publish on his ex-girlfriend online?...Are these people enjoying their freedom that is based on the others' sacrifice of their own privacy and freedom? There should be always responsibility coming along with freedom.

Samantha MacConnell post Don't overestimate privacy of online information

"Employers hiring potential employees and firing current employees based on
their online social networking profiles is an issue that deserves attention,but the bigger dilemma is the lack of privacy online." " I have to disagree with hiring and firing employees based on profile photographs. Shouldn't your personal life be left at the door? A person working five days a week deserves a little down time on the weekends. What a person does on his or her own time on days off should not be used to judge work ethic because that person may be serious and hard-working when they enter the workplace. Employers know that Facebook is popular and that our generation is utilizing it, but business and personal lives should not coincide."

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Yes, we need to drawn a clear line in between business and personal life. And yet, there is also close link between personal life and potential success or failure of that person's future career. Here, I am thinking: what kind of online profiles make employers fire those employees? If your online information is just about usual chatting of normal daily life...that everyone is doing, why is there worry for that? _________________________________________________________
Husna Najand post the following article titled Beware: the Internet could own your future

"The candid camera shot is the ultimate example. If you have never been personally confronted with this embarrassing problem, look no further than the latest public example - Michael Phelps. The photo of him smoking marijuana is the epitome of the candid camera shot gone wrong. He went from an exalted American hero to a petty criminal, thanks to one picture.As a result his professional life took a hit and he could be facing an arrest. It is a scary realization that a single photo can be your undoing and it is worse to know that you have no control over how that photo might be used. Sure we can ask our friends to remove a tag or take a picture down. But with ever-changing privacy terms, that may no longer be sufficient in getting rid of a potentially damaging photo"

Does this mean that person would be all right if he could hide the evidence of committing a criminal?I personally feel 21st Digital Age does do good to monitoring those public figures' personal lives. Nobody has the privilege to play double faces even being a celebrity and
important public figure.

At the same time, the concept of privacy and right is a very separate thing to a demand for total ananymity in all things. We are not only individuals but also groups. We can not expect to be invisible. At 21st digital Age, It is especially important that our students are to be educated to become integrated individuals. By only doing so, technology serves as tool instead of purpose.