Sunday 10 January 2016

Week 1- Report and Reflection

This week I added the word 'Netiquette' to my ever-growing vocabulary. To me, Netiquette is important because it's basically a reminder that you are posting for and responding to real human beings - even if you can't actually see them. Just like in every day face-to-face conversations where certain basic social graces are expected, the same should be applied in an online setting. Blogging should be fun and expressive and opinionated, but there is no need to offend or bring down a fellow blogger!

Netiquette is super important when it comes to building a positive digital footprint. It's crazy to think that our digital footprint began before we were even born, as was really well demonstrated in this Digital Dossier video. The digital footprint that gets created before we have a chance to create it ourselves starts out positive. It is up to us to express opinions respectfully to others and not post offensive things or use things online, such as pictures, that are not ours to share in order to keep our footprint positive! It is so easy these days for anything to surface online from old e-mails to old tweets - keeping this in mind really helps me to 'think before I send' in order to maintain my positive digital footprint.

I definitely think I want a digital footprint, which is a good thing because I don't think I have much of a choice given the results of google searching my name! Having an online presence can be fun - some times I'll go back and read really old tweets from my very first few days as a new Twitter user. My Twitter account, for example, is definitely part of my digital footprint. So is my LinkedIn account, as another example, which really helps me to network myself in a more professional sense. More and more people are being recruited online so having a digital footprint that includes a LinkedIn account is beneficial for me.

Screenshot of Googling my name

I scored 19/20 on my Digital Driver's License Exam... so close to a perfect score! The one question I got wrong was of course one that had two answers that looked right - gets me every time! With these results, I will be focussing on the Digital Communication area over the next few weeks. However, just because I was able to get the majority of questions in this short exam correct does not mean I don't have more to learn in the other areas as well - and I look forward to doing so!

Through my explorations, there was one major connection with the material found in the Building Background section of this session that relates well to where I stand at this moment as a new blogger. Within the article Six reasons why kids should know how to blog, I connected well with the article's sixth reason of 'pride in their work' because since setting up my blog and writing my first post today I've already had 11 views! It's a cool feeling to write something that others may value or gain insights from, and I'm really looking forward to writing more posts and sharing them with others. 


2 comments:

  1. Hi Carolyne, I too love to watch the hit counts on the blog posts. I feel that my writing is validated when I know that people are reading it and thinking about it. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Carolyne,

    I found the second sentence in this blog post very fascinating. You said that Netiquette is "basically a reminder" that you're actually communicating with real human beings online. It's sad that we have to be reminded, but important that we are, because I know a lot of people that have experienced far too much online abuse. Most of the time these horrible situations are a result of someone forgetting that, the fact that they are actually communicating, influencing, and affecting real people.

    Stephen

    ReplyDelete