Final Blog Post 12

Krissy@venspired.com (CC). 2013

So this is it the end of the journey. I have explored digital citizenship for 12 weeks now and I must say I have learned A LOT. The digital world is far more complicated than I originally thought. The three main points I have learned about are my digital footprint, digital citizenship and how to use digital tools.

Digital Citizenship

This topic seems easy at first but I find it gets much more intricate the more you look into it. Within this umbrella term there are many little sub-topics that are all equally important as the next. I personally found for myself communication

to be important. I think that many people today don’t seem to understand that communication online should be no different than if it were to be in person. This means communicating with respect and clarity. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen two people get into fights on Twitter or Facebook. The younger generation especially need to realize that in person your character is shown through your demeanor, appearance the way you talk and expressions. That is a lot of information to use; it provides people with a lot of chances to determine how they want to communicate with you. However, online there is only one way. What people see? Your tone is hard to express over written language unless clearly specified, this means sarcasm can backfire. If you only post photos of partying then you just look like someone who is not very serious about their future. If you write hateful comments…well no one is really going to want to associate with that. Because digital communication is more vague then face to face we need to make sure we are clear and respectful when we do so, in order to have the world see us how we actually want to be seen.

Digital Tools

This was the fun part of the course we used tons of tools some that were new to me but many that I have been using for years! I want to focus on the tools I already knew about. I learned so many different features and ways to use these tools that I would have never known about. I think this is important to take away as digital citizens. When we start using a new tool we need to really explore it and even go to outside sources to learn more about it to better use that tool.

Digital Footprint

This was probably my favorite topic because I find it incorporates everything we learned in this course. Your digital footprint is basically a log of everything that you do online. In this generation that is pretty much your whole life. In my blog post #1 I talk about how I think a positive digital footprint is the key point. I think if we execute my above points properly then we can really clean up our digital footprints to make them positive. It is never too later to change your footprint for the better. Although, we cannot erase our past we can make our current footprint positive. Everyone changes and grows up we want our footprint to show that over time I have learned to be a proper digital citizen.

I would like to thank my classmates and facilitator for this fun experience and I hope you all the best with improving your digital footprint.