10 Steps to Manage Your Digital Reputation

Even if you have avoided the use of social network tools, you almost certainly have a digital footprint. If you have presented anything anywhere or published anything anywhere, there is likely a record of that online. In addition, things others have written about you, with or without your permission, may be found online. Those small bits of information are easily searched using a search engine, and increasingly your reputation can hinge on what people are able to find out about you online.

The simplest solution – manage your digital footprint. Start by building the footprint you want, and then nurture and protect it. Make sure that when people search for you online, the web paints the picture you want them to see. Follow the ten easy steps below to get started with managing your professional reputation and digital footprint.

1. Build your professional brand (McGinnis, 2012). Create profiles in the professional accounts you use, and keep them up to date. Electronic portfolios, blogs, and professional image collections labeled with your name are good ways to ensure that the brand you are trying to convey is at the top of search engine results. 
2. Google yourself regularly. Consider using a service like Scoop.it or Google Alerts to let you know when information about you is posted online (Ohler, 2010, McGinnis, 2012). The best defense is a good offense - if you know what others will see when they search for your name, you are in a better position to build your brand. 
3. Keep personal and professional networking accounts separate (NYCDE, 2013). This seems like a no-brainer, but it is amazing how many people post personal updates to their professional accounts. At best it’s annoying for readers who follow for the content, and many times it’s embarrassing. In worst case scenarios, sharing personal information on a professional account can damage your credibility and cost you a job. 
4. Communicate with students only through professional and/or district approved networking accounts (Swanson, 2010). Again, this seems like a no-brainer, but too many teachers “friend” their students and/or students’ parents on social networking sites they use to communicate with friends and family, and then share information that is inappropriate. Many districts have policies in place prohibiting “friending” of students; in some cases teachers have lost their jobs for posting provocative pictures, pictures of alcohol consumption, or controversial statements in social networking platforms shared with students. 
5.  Be professional at all times. Treat professional social networking as if it was the workplace (NYCDE, 2013, Ambrogi, 2009). Everything you post on your professional networks reflects your professional brand. Be factual, don’t gossip, and always remember that every post you write may be someone’s first impression of you. YouTube is full of videos of employees doing inappropriate things - don’t let that be you! 
6. Edit yourself (Ambrogi, 2009). Let your personality shine through, but do it in a way that you’re not embarrassed to have your grandmother, daughter, or boss read. Never post workplace complaints online - in the most extreme circumstances, this can even cost you your job by calling your professional judgement into question. 
7.  Delete inappropriate posts and remove name tags from images (Ambrogi, 2009, Lepi, 2013). Read every comment added to your posts. Respectful disagreement is appropriate and can even improve credibility, but delete comments that are detrimental to your professional image. 
8.  Do not share personal information that can easily lead to identity theft - birthdate, social security number, zip code, home town, or telephone number (Lewis, 2013). Combined with your name, any two of those is considered sufficient for identity theft. Even personal information such as pet names can lead to a crime of opportunity, if you use it as a password or password hint. 
   
9. Check your privacy settings, and read site privacy policies before posting. (Madden & Smith, 2010). Assume that everything you post is public - even private tweets and Facebook private group posts can show up in a Google search (Ambrogi, 2009). 
10. Use common sense (Ambrogi, 2009). No matter how many tips you read, write or commit to, there will be situations that aren’t covered. Use good judgment about how to respond to those situations!

References

Blended Learning - from Outliers to Norm

There are many different models of blended learning that reflect a range of pedagogies, strategies and tools. Some of those models have been documented in "The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning", highlighting instances of blended learning success around the US. Regardless of where one falls on the blended learning continuum or which blended learning model one is using, the goal is to give students more control over their learning in order to improve relevance, engagement, and college and career readiness. Because these models are so new, there is little research to validate which strategies, tools, and pedagogical approaches are most effective.

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NG1232.pdf

The third wave of the Next Generation Learning Challenge grant program (NGLC) asked schools and districts to envision what blended schools might look like. Twenty schools were awarded funding based on their adherence to the NGLC's underlying principles:

• Proven student achievement in a scalable model
• Learner-centered experiences that are engaging, active, and situated
• Deliberate design of student progression customized to student needs (mastery learning)
• Technology used to personalize the learning environment
• Technology-enabled tools to improve flexibility in time, content, space
• Affordable and sustainable model

These schools will spend the next two years implementing their blended learning model, conducting action research on effective strategies, and documenting their progress. One challenge is to find instruments that accurately measure both the principles referenced above, and deeper student learning that is the philosophical underpinning of the grant. 

For those of us who believe that blended learning is our best opportunity to make curriculum and content more relevant and engaging to best meet student needs, these grants are welcome news. The NGLC implementation and results will help to identify the factors that are scalable, affordable, and sustainable for all students, as opposed to outlier models that are not representative of student needs, demographics, access or funding. Identifying those common factors will help to move blended learning into the mainstream.

My Personal Learning Environment

I am currently taking a wonderful course about leadership in my doctoral program at Boise State University. Part of what makes it wonderful is that it is really requiring me to reflect on the various roles and responsibilities of leadership, and my skills and areas for growth in those areas. Like most busy professionals, I tend to neglect my own personal learning, but this course forced me to examine, again, whether being too busy to grow as a professional and a leader is really an option.

Here is a short screencast I did to describe my personal learning environment, which contains the ways in which I learn both individually and with others. Every time I do an exercise like this I am reminded how important it is  to both learn from and share with other professionals.

Infographic by Easel.ly

In my Leading Edge Certification course, one of the assignments was to create a poster or infographic to address the topic of cyberbullying. At the Common Sense Media site, I found an information dense chart that explained the steps an administrator would take after a report of cyberbullying. Using Easel.ly, I migrated the information from a dense chart into a more simple infographic. Technologically, it wasn't that complex. Cognitively, I was surprised at how demanding it was to identify only key terms, synthesize the relationships, and re-imagine the chart in a new way. I liked my result - I hope you do too!


easel.ly

Dysfunction

In educational technology, we've been dealing with this for years. "Curriculum" people get upset when we talk about curriculum, or standards, or anything else that falls into "their" territory. Now it seems to be all about ownership of the Common Core, and whether those of us in educational technology are allowed to be part of the conversation. We ARE curriculum people, every bit as much as the ELA, Math, Science and Social Science folks are. We are not about devices. We are about learning, and teaching, and achievement, and engagement.

The battles right now in many district and county offices are about who "owns" Common Core. The territorialism inherent in individuals wanting to be THE CCSS expert is unfortunate. Certainly, there is enough work to go around, and increasing the number of experts and acknowledging that expertise is vital to successful implementation.

Get Your Learn On!

Well, I've made it to CUE 2013! This year it seems that the majority of the sessions reference Common Core - I'm not sure if that's because CCSS is the buzz word for the year, or because there are a lot of CCSS experts at the conference. While a lot of my time will be spent presenting and supporting my team as they present, I'll get to attend a few sessions over the next couple of days.

I'm  still managing to keep to my goal of tweeting when I'm at conferences. I'm following a few more people, and I've graduated to re-tweeting. It's good to grow the PLN - if only Twitter wasn't blocked at work!

So, let the professional learning commence!

Think Before You Post!

I don't care what your politics are or whether you are conservative or liberal - check the story before you repost it on Facebook! Over that past three days I've seen otherwise reasonably intelligent people share posts that they got elsewhere that are easily checked and have been found to be false.

One recent story claims that Fox News is reporting that children of members of Congress get their student loans forgiven. Apparently, because the story says that a news agency reported it, that part "must" be true. Except that Fox News never reported it, and Politifact and the Annenberg Public Policy Center found the statement itself to be false. Families of those in Congress are eligible for the exact same student loan programs that you and I are eligible for.

The other post that keeps coming around is some child with cancer who will receive a donation based on number of reposts and likes. Snopes.com shows the photos and debunks the story. Snopes.com is a pretty easy way to check on Facebook stories that are not political, and see if they are hoaxes.

We, and our students, need to start double checking our facts. We expect students to cross-reference information when they do research in high school; let's help them make that a transferable skill. We don't want another generation that posts everything that matches their politics whether it's even remotely true or not, nor do we want another generation that forwards emails to everyone they know about how onions cure the common cold and then become toxic! As we talk about digital footprint with our kids, let's talk about the concept that re-posting biased and untrue information reduces your credibility factor, and that fact-checking is a responsible part of living in a democracy.

Image credit: By User:Husky (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons