COGNITIVE PODIATRY

In class we discussed the notion of  a “digital footprint”. The easiest way to get some sense of your internet foot size is simply entering your own name in Google, also known as “egosurfing”.  My top five egosurf results:

1.    The novel I wrote (The Frankenstein Murders)

2.    My LinkedIn profile

3.    My RateMyProfessors (dated) ratings

4.    My Facebook account

5.    A short story I wrote for a brand new e-zine (Dimensional Fallacy)

For a more robust consideration of your web presence, Google has Me on the Web, which “can help you understand and manage what people see when they search for you on Google”.

Chapter 31 of the Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences is titled Internet Use in Schools: Promises and Problems (Schofeld). Among many other items, Schofeld speaks to “concerns about student safely stemming from the fact that students can use the Internet to interact with those they do not know”. Add to this the stories we have all heard of students posting inappropriate comments, photos, and videos on Facebook or some such place.  For Task 4, I intend to examine a second level business communications course that needs to be converted from hybrid/blended to fully online. Considering all this, I would very much like to make new media literacy a (significant?) part of the course.