We’ve been busy talking about digital footprints and our on-line presence, present and future the past few classes.  My student intern just asked the class “does a digital footprint happen by accident?”

That got me to thinking – how does my digital footprint develop?  Of course, we know we play a large role in developing and managing our own profiles, but how do we begin to assess the power of what we write/publish?  How far can it reach?

This little fellow feels fine.

We can create our own portfolios, blogs, websites, etc and shape our presence through these on-line presences, but is that all there is to it?  Can we just avoid a Digital Footprint by not posting anything? What about the google full of other data out there with our name on it that we don’t have as much control over? What about the tagged photos in facebook? What about information posted by organizations of which we are a part?  Obviously, as more and more information becomes available in digital form and search tools/aggregators become even more powerful management tools, it will be even more imperative to have the skills necessary to assess and manage our own profile.

As an example of the power of the Internet to bring our feelings and ideas together, my student intern is showing the class We Feel Fine,  a new website that aggregates, connects and mashes together the plethora of feelings and emotions posted in the billions of blogs around the world.  Amazing.

So, what do our kids need to know about this power of the web?  How can we best prepare them for an increasingly connected world where they will be visible at a click of the mouse?

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Photo Credit: Então, Uploaded to flickr on November 12, 2009 by Malu Green!