This week I learned a lot that I didn’t already know about digital citizenship.  This week was all about your digital footprint/digital tattoo.  I had never heard the phrase digital tattoo before.  I feel like this phrase explains what a digital footprint is in a much clearer way.  It is permanent.  It can be removed but not without pain and you may never fully remove it.  While discussing this phrase this week we also discussed a few statistics that were shocking and a bit scary.  Dr. M shared that 91% of teens will share a private picture that was shared with them with someone else.  That doesn’t include how many teens are sharing those kinds of images.  She also mentioned that only 64% of parents check their teen’s phones.  YIKES!  I truly hope that statistic is incorrect.  While in this discussion another classmate shared the biggest issue they are having in their school district, revenge porn.  I had never heard of this term.  I had to google it.  For those of you that don’t know what it means either, it’s sharing something on social media for revenge purposes.  I currently have an eight-year-old, and this scares me.  This is why we have to teach our kids and students about the importance of their digital tattoo.  So many of them do not understand the impact they are making on their future by what they think is harmless.  That image could possibly keep them from receiving a scholarship or even their dream job one day.  We have to make sure that students understand what a digital tattoo is, and how they can create a positive digital footprint.  Did I mention I learned many things I did not know this week, one being net neutrality?

I am ashamed to admit that I had no idea what net neutrality meant.  After reading about it this week, I will be following this a little more closely.  Currently, the FCC has repealed the current net neutrality rules.  For those of you that are a little lost like I was, net neutrality is making sure that everyone has equal access to the internet.  So if you are like me, you are asking yourself what does that mean for education.  It could mean many things.  First of all, for those don’t currently have internet access at home this could mean they may never have it because the cost could increase.  We have many students that don’t have access to internet at home, and with the increase in cost they may never have that access.  It could also increase the cost for schools.  Not to mention they will have power in deciding what is available to us.  The graphic below help depict what this could look like if the repeal sticks.

Image from Digital Information World

I also did some research on a tool that was brought to us after the year 2000 and how it has impacted digital citizenship.  You can see the video below: