ItsTheMitchell

The Internet is the wild west. It can be a bit… uncivilized. How do we teach our students, as well as our own children… and ourselves for that matter, to bring a touch of civilization to the internet? How do teach and learn how to protect ourselves from those internet ruffians? Google to the rescue! Go check out beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com. (That’s “be internet awesome (dot) with google (dot) com” without the spaces.) Be Internet Awesome covers topics like being kind, but not oversharing, securing your accounts, and finding truth on the internet. It’s even got games to teach the concepts. Yes, it seems like it’s aimed at students younger than High School, but if they haven’t learned it by now, they could use the exposure. Consider this for your own children as well.

Your digital footprint. According to techterms.com, it is "a trail of data you create while using the internet. It includes the websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit to online services." Considering that, your digital footprint includes; every email you have sent, every tweet you've posted, every Facebook status update, every comment, every video, every website you've visited, every shared post, every time you shared misinformation with knowing, every reply, every picture, every thing you have ever done on the Internet, ever, ever, ever, ever. Here's is what I tell my students are the two biggest things to keep in mind when thinking about your digital footprint... 1. The Internet is all knowing. 2. The Internet is forever. Imagine this. You (yes, the real you sitting there hopefully reading this right now) have an imaginary backpack. That imaginary backpack keeps a list of every thing you do, everywhere you go, and everything you...