Thursday, January 22, 2015

Digital Footprint

Digital footprint is a topic that has become more relevant with the increase of technology, a topic that I believe needs more attention. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have made it very easy to look up information about any person or business. I always bring this discussion up in my classroom because I teach middle school students. All the chatter is about who is doing what, did you see what so and so posted, she looked retched in that picture, etc... This generation has such a different mind-frame than I did at their age. From my experience, they think in the here and now. This is why this topic should be discussed more, they have no idea how this could affect their future.

After searching for my name, I found myself to be a little lucky. I didn't really find anything that pertained to my name as Brooke Martin. I guess I could call myself a little fortunate because my name recently changed after I got married. Searching under my married name, Martin, I found several links to the following topics:

Web search
  • Brooke Martin Photography, she is quit talented
  • Brooke Martin, a 14 year old girl who created a dog treat company called ICPooch
  • Brooke Martin, a news anchor in Indianapolis
  • I did find my blog that I have for my classes. 
  • I also found my name linking to my student organization under their board members
Image search
  • I did not find anything in reference to myself
Video search
  • I saw a lot of Brooke Martin on Vine, but I do not have a Vine account
When searching for Brooke Maxey, my maiden name, I found the following:

Web search
  • A lot of links to social media, all of which were not my accounts
  • I did find several links for a blog that I wrote when I was an intern at Gallery Furniture for winter break in college.
  • I also found a link that took me to my wedding/engagement/bridal session (fun to reminisce)
  • Brooke Maxey, the volleyball player
Image search
  • I found a picture of my husband and I 
  • I found my work ID photo from their website
  • I found several of my wedding pictures
  • A lot of Brooke Maxey, the volleyball player
Video search
  • I found footage of volleyball games
From my results, I found it a little shocking that I did not find more links to myself. I remember when I first became a teacher, I caught students Google searching my name all the time. I believe it was my first year of teaching, about half way through the first semester, a student found my name and my phone number posted online. I was horrified thinking, oh my goodness, what am I going to do now? They found my information from a Facebook link. The page was for someone who had lost their phone and asked everyone to post their numbers on the page. I told my students that if they looked at the date, the post was 3 years old, they would see it was a long time ago and I explained it was an older number. I have no idea how I came up with that little white lie by the skin of my pants, but it worked! I never received a phone call from a student. From that point on, I was very cautious of what went online. 

I have done searches of myself in previous years to see what students could find on me and I never found anything that I wouldn't be proud of. I guess I consider myself lucky because I grew up in a transitional stage of technology and I was really involved in instant messaging (back when AOL dial-up was cool) and text messaging. Also, I was a littler terrified of my Dad because he was strict on what I could do on the computer. I do like that when I search for myself, I see a lot of professional items such as; my blog posts from Gallery Furniture, Graduate School blog for my classes, my professional information on my student organization website because I am a board member, and my work information on my school website. I say I am an active person with technology, I am just cautious on what I put online. I have always been terrified to post that I am leaving on vacation for a week and I come home to a burglarized house or even someone stalking me. I guess I have watched too many Life Time movies haha. 

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