I Googled myself.
Dave Mulder Googled himself and found some things that he did not necessarily expect to see and I had the same experience. I did not expect to have sports articles from my high school career, but I did enjoy the nostalgia of reading up on some the articles I was mentioned in from high school! Not that I am that old, but it is definitely a sign of how things are permanent and that there is sometimes no control over how my name gets online.
I also ran across a personal website I made for a class at Dordt. It was interesting what I found on there. There were a few things on it that did not necessarily help my digital footprint. I had a nice little bio of me, which is obviously now outdated. Someone who looked at it could possibly think that was current, and have a very different perspective of me than what is actually true. Also, there was a list of educational websites, one of which was now an invalid link. Invalid links on websites make me agitated because I don't understand why someone would put a link on there when there is nothing to go to. Here I was doing the same thing! It looks bad on me as an educator to have a list of educational links with one of them being invalid. A final page on the site had two documents attached to it: a resume and a classroom management plan. They were quite interesting reads I must say. Again, the resume, like the bio, was quite outdated and would not allow me to have much to stand on if it were to be used for any sort of application. The classroom management plan was ok, but definitely not what I would say is true for me currently. It was great to see what I thought back then, but it looked like that document, and whole page, was who I was currently.
I deleted the page.
This aspect of my digital footprint was something I had control over, so I decided it was one that I wanted to get rid of because it no longer accurately portrayed who I was. For an updated bio, my faculty page at school is now the only thing online that tells a little bit about who I am. This is a good thing, because before it looked as though I was currently doing undergrad work at Dordt, 20 years old, and no teaching experience!
Google search now has an updated version of who I am.
Thanks for cleaning up your act! I guess I should try the same. You may be interested in knowing that when I do a Google image search for myself, your photo comes up! I'm proud of that!
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I can say I'm glad to be associated with you!
DeleteIt's interesting to hear how your digital footprint had been "frozen" at a time you may not have expected before updating it. Good job cleaning it up! I didn't have much show up with my google search, but am disappointed in myself that I have not made more of an impression. Change is coming! Good thing we signed up for this class. :)
ReplyDeleteA digital footprint, frozen in time. I suppose the same thing happens when one moves to another community-people remember you the way you were, frozen in time. Which one would be easier to update?
ReplyDelete