Anselm Strauss, “Mirrors and Masks: the search for identity.” (1969)

Although Strauss was writing more than two decades before the Internet became part of mainstream popular culture his quote applies equally well to the concept of how we present ourselves online through a digital identity. This post was very much fashioned with the anticipations and judgements of my audience in mind, and the points I intend to make play very much to that audience and have influenced the content and style of the post greatly. I have considered (some of my friends would say far too much for a humble blog post) what to include, and what not to include, not only because I want it to be useful and provide help to others who are just starting to ponder the possible conflicts within their own digital identity (or identities), but also because I am acutely aware of what this says about my own digital identity to others.

(Image by â™¥KatB Photography♥, available on Flickr under the Creative Commons licence)

Whenever someone tells us how we ought to present ourselves in life, we’re wary and often apprehensive about their motives, so why should we be any less skeptical when someone tells us how to present our digital identities? Without wanting to generalise in the realms of psychology too much, we all have our internal conflicts and our own idiosyncracies that make us who we are and that filters through into our digital identities. That’s what makes providing guidance on digital identity so challenging, because our motives for publishing vignettes of ourselves online, often for a variety of different audiences, on a variety of different social media sites and for a variety of different reasons, makes any guidance at best problematic and at worst, potentially damaging.

So why bother with what I, or anyone else for that matter, says about ensuring that the mask of your digital identity doesn’t slip? Do we all wear ‘masks’ or different hats for different occasions anyway, or are we always the same when it comes to our online interactions? What should we, with complete and unabashed honesty, share with the world and what should we keep private? Should we distinguish between our professional and social lives, and if so, where do we draw the line?

These questions and the artificial boundaries that spring up in response to them will vary enormously from individual to individual, but in spite of this variance we should all care, in my opinion, about our digital identities because they provide a lens for others when defining who we are. Granted, the picture is a little bit like a jigsaw with a number of pieces missing and often gets distorted and can sometimes be taken out of context, but it’s still a snapshot that reflects you in some way.

So why do I care?  And, more importantly, why should you care? Well, let’s just rewind a little and go back to the point about having different audiences, using different sites and for different reasons, for anything you publish online.  You should care because you’re probably an academic who is not only interested in your own digital identity, but you also have a level of responsibility for learners in terms of educating them in the safe and responsible use of online media. It’s also highly likely that you’re juggling a number of digital identities yourself and are wrestling with what to share/what not to share/where to share it/with whom, etc.

Ultimately, if we decide to take the decision to ‘opt out’ and go for online anonymity, there are still inherent risks.  In fact, in some walks of life, such as advertising, public relations or the media, no digital identity could be detrimental or equate to either a lack of achievement or to a perceived lack of competence with how social media operates entirely. Furthermore, is opting out really an option for modern learners? Werdmuller, co-founder of Elgg, argues in his blog that although no one is forced to join Facebook for example, it’s pretty much a mandatory part of the social experience for many and not joining is perceived as outside the norm and that you have something to hide.

Also, not venturing into the digital landscape yourself to develop an online presence doesn’t mean to say that someone else hasn’t done it on your behalf. The Pew Internet Project report (2007) carried out a study entitled Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency that distinguishes between two types of digital footprint – active and passive. The former being a voluntary disclosure of personal information by the individual and the latter (passive) where the personal data of an individual is made available online with no intentional intervention from the individual. The revelation that we may have a digital identity that we were not even aware of may not necessarily be as sinister as it sounds – in the Web 2 world of photo sharing, blogging, tweeting, facebooking, etc, it’s almost inevitable that someone, probably one of your friends or even family, has shared something about you online.

So, what practical steps can you, or your learners, take to monitor your digital identity and ensure that the way in which it is “presented to the world” gives you a degree of autonomy to present the facets you want to present?

There are various ways of keeping tabs on your digital identity. Obviously, you can google yourself from time to time, but I’d recommend that you search for your name on a range of different search engines as the criteria they use for ranking web pages will vary, so the websites where your name crops up will also vary in the search results. This method also presumes that you will actively search for results against your name on a fairly regular basis, which (even for the most egocentric amongst us) could mean you forget and miss something.  In fact, according to the aforementioned Pew report, as little as 3% of people regularly make a habit of monitoring their online presence, 22% say they check “every once in a while” whilst the remaining 74% have only ever checked their digital footprint once or twice.

Alternatively, you could try Google Alerts, which will monitor the web for occurrences of your name and will then email you the results (here’s a quick YouTube tutorial that shows you how). This approach removes the onus from you to actively keep searching for new instances of passive digital footprints associated with your name. Should you come across something that is less than flattering, such as a snide tweet, an unflattering photo, or derogatory blog post, etc, you at least have the opportunity to address it and defend your position.  I say opportunity, because in certain cases the best response is no response, as some people deliberately try to provoke a response with such behaviour and it’s always worth considering the impact and credibility of each instance on a case by case basis.

This all sounds a little negative, so let’s look at the positives of having a digital identity too. The advantages of keeping in touch with family and friends that are geographically dispersed speak for themselves, and no doubt accounts for the fact that Facebook recorded some 845 million monthly active users by the end of 2011. By monitoring you can also stumble upon a number of complimentary instances of your name too that you weren’t aware of and deserve acknowledgement and perhaps even a response. This is particularly the case at educational events where the use of Twitter as a backchannel can offer a lively compliment to the proceedings, but people often miss out on this if they don’t use Twitter. The same is equally true of blogs that can also provide a more reflective source of topical issues prevalent in education today – if you’ve done something that’s particularly innovative or noteworthy then there’s an excellent chance that someone, somewhere will have blogged about it. In fact, in the article 14 Things You Should Do To Protect Your Online Reputation Invesp recommends taking control by setting up social media profiles and your own blog with your own domain name as a means of establishing a positive digital identity. Not only does this minimise the possibility that someone else may maliciously set up a negative, false profile in your name, but also by keeping your own blog you have the control to voice your own views rather than allowing others to present potentially skewed and negative interpretations that may reflect badly on you to others.

According to the Open University’s Careers website having a positive digital footprint is also an excellent opportunity to market yourself to potential employers. As well as keeping a blog there are a number of sites where you can develop a profile to showcase your skills and experience and allow you to control what you share publicly.  Linked In, for example, is the world’s largest professional network with over a 150 million profiles where you can decide which elements of your profile are public and visible to search engines. You can also improve SEO by including your name in a personalised URL for your account, which will ensure a higher ranking in any search against your name.  There’s a plethora of sites that offer tips and advice on making the most of your digital identity on Linked In, but for an excellent overview I’d recommend looking at Pooky Hesmondhalgh’s 10 tips for getting the most out of Linked In.

If you’d like to find out more about digital identity, especially in relation to teaching and learning, I can also strongly recommend Catherine Cronin‘s post, Resources for exploring digital identity, privacy and authenticity, which provided me with many of the ideas (and inspiration) for this post too. When it comes to developing your own digital identity, even though there are certainly more questions than answers, the important thing is to explore the options so that you can make an informed decision on which tools are appropriate (or not) for you, and how to make best use of them. Yes, this will almost certainly involve some mistakes and a certain amount of self discovery along the way – but isn’t that what learning is all about?

That’s why, when I shared a fairly innocuous photo (the one below) about books and added the caption “Or e-books if you have a Kindle or other e-Reading device” I was quite surprised at the discussion that followed.

I’ve included a slightly edited version of the discussion below (I’ve changed the names of the people involved and removed the more trivial, jokey comments common to Facebook), because I think it raises some interesting reflections about hard copy texts and e-books, but also about the broader issues of how our reading habits are changing and the social implications of that change.

What does sometimes surprise me is the strength of feeling some people have towards technology, especially amongst my friends.

The discussion that followed went along these lines:

Andrea: “Damn the e-books and Kindle – half of the happiness is in the smell and feel of the paper!!”

Simon: “I know what you’re saying, I had the same misgivings before I got a Kindle, but I have to say I’ve been converted. After filling up two entire rooms of my house and the attic with books, you have to wonder about the environmental impact of compulsive book-hoarding.”

Andrea: “Simon, I’m sure the Kindle is quite addictive once you’ve tried it, which I have to admit that I as yet haven’t. All this technology just makes me afraid for future generations, for who everything will be virtual, and nothing real they can touch and sense.

Kindle is also helping the self-publishing revolution, which may prove useful for me one day, but this also means there’ll be an influx of people self-publishing absolute trash, with no proper editing or even basic comprehension of proper grammar, and slowly but surely ‘proper’ use of the English language will be a thing of the past…  

Regarding the environmental impact – I totally agree with you on that one too, though I have to wonder if making so much plastic is actually worse for the environment than making paper from sustainable sources. Having said all this, as long as we continue to keep our books alongside Kindles, I may be tempted to get one myself in years to come, if only to suss out the competition in the self-publishing sections…”

Anthony: “You will never be able to put ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’, a classic children’s book, on a Kindle. I also buy books based on their appearance. Every book on a Kindle is going to look the same. Plus, how on earth are you going to be able to tell what other people are reading on a train, a plane, a bus or in the park? Let’s face it, if you see other people reading a book, you may be tempted to read it yourself, or stike up a conversation with the reader. The Kindle just looks drab next to a visually appealing book.”

Simon: “Anthony – how often do you strike up conversations with complete strangers about what they’re reading? If you were to do this regularly I bet you’d get a lot of commuters changing seats suddenly or who’d say they “have to get off at the next stop,” and you’re too old to be reading ‘The Hungry Caterpillar!’

Seriously though, yes, there are advantages to traditional printed books, of course there are, but you can’t stop progress I’m afraid. I wonder when Caxton introduced the printing press to England in the fifteenth century whether people also had similar misgivings about the loss of handwritten texts and all the richness and diversity that different styles of writing bring to books? Of course, now we don’t even give it a second thought…”

Andrea: “You have a point about the printing press, but this form of ‘writing’ was only generally available to the rich media or business industries, while the mass public were in no danger of losing their abiity to actually handwrite. Whilst e-books are not actually altering the format of novels, in the sense that it is still the printed word, in my mind it’s sucking the soul out of books.

Working in a school I’ve seen first-hand how teenagers have little concentration to read entire books these days, and prefer to switch from one interest to another without spending the time or effort to give a text a chance and to consider any deeper contexts within the story. This is made so much easier for them with e-books – as many books as they like, easily to give up on, easily deleted, easily replaced. When the throw-away society hits the soul, something feels very wrong about that to me…”

Simon: “The introduction of the printing press has still been a critical step towards introducing books to the mass market – perhaps not immediately, granted, but let’s face it the levels of literacy back in the 15th century would have been significantly lower then anyway.

I don’t really think you can say that e-books are not altering the format of novels to be honest – traditional printed texts are inaccessible to many, especially the elderly with visual impairments, whereas with e-books you can change the font size, font, make use of the screenreader, etc making them far more accessible for many.

I think the issue of teenagers not concentrating in schools goes beyond e-Readers. Although I don’t doubt this is an issue for many, I think this is a much broader symptom of people who have been brought up in the Internet age, which, whether you like it or not, is here to stay and so you can’t really blame e-Readers for that per se.

I do love printed books too by the way, but I think you at least need to give e-Readers a try before writing them off.”

Andrea: “I agree that things need to be tried and tested before being written off. I’m certain there are many benefits to e-books, and I certainly agree that the modern mindset is not a symptom of e-books alone, but a result of a whole collection of factors in the modern world. And I adore the internet, for all its faults, so I do absolutely accept change when I believe it’s for the better. I think the e-book has its place (even if I do think it has many incredibly negative aspects to it), I just hope passionately that the printed book sticks around too, if only so that some trace of our modern existence remains once we’re all gone – when all our world is digital, once the batteries run out our history dies with us!!”

Simon: “Ahh, then we finally agree, because I hope the printed book survives too, but e-books do have a place. Without being too sentimental, I class some of my books as lifelong friends, because of all the other associations I have with a physical copy (such as how old I was when I first read the book, what I was doing, how it made me feel, etc) and I’m not sure I’d feel quite the same about an intangible, virtual copy.”

As a lover of books (in whatever form) I think there is a place for both, but there is definitely something about the hard copy that touches people and is quite heart-warming to read.  It is perhaps then no small irony that I found this staunch defence of the hard copy book so touching, even though I was reading it in digital format on my Facebook wall…

Building up a social media buzz during events has many advantages: the Twitter backchannel can provide a useful opportunity for peer networking (especially at larger events where you might struggle to meet up and chat with everyone in person); receiving instant feedback from delegates on the day; and there’s also an opening for people who are not present in person who are following the hashtag to contribute to the event with useful links, comments, etc.

Perhaps the most widely-used site to display tweets is Twitterfall, a Twitter client that offers an impressive range of features to customise and refine your display, such as excluding keywords (useful for removing spam), adding more than one hashtag to the display (could be useful if you have a number of workshops at an event using different hashtags), as well as being able to change the speed which the tweets are displayed and the font size and so on.

Although Twitterfall does the job, it doesn’t work particularly well at smaller face to face events where you might only have a limited number of people tweeting, because by displaying all the tweets in a linear fashion it highlights the fact that not many people are tweeting or that the same person is tweeting continually.  That’s why I prefer Visible Tweets, because most of the events I go to aren’t necessarily on a huge scale and Visible Tweets displays the tweets one at a time on screen, rather than as a list, so it disguises the number of people tweeting better.

On the downside, there aren’t the options for customising the speed of the transitions or the font size on Visible Tweets, but as only one tweet is being displayed at any given time the default size of the tweet is sufficient anyway.  Plus, there are other options for customising the display, like making use of tag clouds and rotation animations and the background colours also change randomly between tweets, which makes the display even more eye-catching.

Below is an example tweet using Visible Tweets taken from the recent Excellence in Learning Resources forum (#eilr):

There are other sites that you could use too, such as Paratweet, which has a nifty option of allowing you to moderate tweets before they are displayed (this could be especially useful in education if you have some mischievous learners who like to test the boundaries…), but you do need to set up an account and moderation is not available on the free version.

It’s also worth pointing out that the Twitter site itself provides a number of widgets as well that allow you to embed tweets from a particular search into your own website, which you could also use at live events.  If you have a regular footfall to your site this also has the added advantage of stimulating extra traffic to the face to face event.  There are also options to customise the preferences so the widget fits in with the style of your website and you can also set the number of tweets displayed, etc.

Another tool worth a mention, even though it’s nothing to do with displaying your tweets, is Hashtracking.  Hashtracking provides you with analytics to see what kind of engagement you have had with a specific hashtag following an event.  Although this site is still in beta, it gives you a free report on any hashtag used in the last 24 hours telling you the number of tweets, retweets, @ replies, and more.

The simplest uses for technology are often the best, which is why I really like how the library at the University of Bedfordshire are using QR Codes.  Many learning providers have tried using QR Codes now and I think it’s fair to say there’s been mixed results.  At the end of the day it typically comes down to how something is being used rather than what is being used, and if you can think of a creative use for technology that addresses a specific problem then you’re usually on to a winner.

The specific problem: Many libraries have heavily-used book stock in certain curriculum areas and simply don’t have enough printed texts for every student.

The QR Code solution: Strategically place a poster (see below) at the shelving point where the printed texts are in high demand with a QR Code linking to an electronic version of the text!

(Image taken from Experimenting with mobile technologies in libraries, by Jo Alcock.  Available from http://www.slideshare.net/joeyanne/experimenting-with-mobiletechnologiesinlibraries).

However, social media sites, such as Foursquare, are called ‘social’ for a reason – they add a social dimension to your everyday travels and are essentially about encouraging others to share, comment and connect with you on a personal level.  However, too many of my friends fall into the trap of simply using Foursquare as a number-crunching game and overlook the important social aspects.

It’s okay to compete with others for the number of check-ins at your favourite places and vie for Mayor, don’t get me wrong, it’s also fine to pip your friends to the post on the leaderboards each week and strive to unlock the most badges if that floats your boat, but for me, these are really just gimmicks designed to complement the real reason for using Foursquare – to share, comment and connect with others.

In my experience, users that focus too much on the number-crunching aspects of Foursquare (and not the social aspects) are usually quite new to it and are still trying to find their feet.  The novelty of number-crunching wears off very quickly for most users, but for those who want to get more out of Foursquare here are five things you might like to consider:

1. Think about it before you create a location and check-in. Although plenty of people do it, I’d advise against adding places like your home address to Foursquare, unless you have a really good reason.  Similarly, choose carefully who you broadcast your check-ins to, especially if you’re on holiday and away from home for extended periods.  Scare-stories abound on the internet about stalking and cyber-criminals taking advantage of your data, but if you take the time to explore the privacy settings properly this needn’t be an issue. If you are reading this and are thinking “Oops, I’ve already added my home to Foursquare…” here’s how you can remove it. You can also check-in privately (known as “off the grid” check-ins) if you don’t want your friends to know where you are, but you still want to earn badges and track your check-ins on your history – here’s how.

(Image provided by Chee Chin, available on Flickr under the Creative Commons licence)

2. Incomplete social media profiles – this is my pet bugbear. Please, please, please, make sure you add a photo and include some details about yourself.  If you’re not willing to share anything about yourself with others, why should they share with you? Also, when you see an incomplete profile it just smacks of someone who’s either not that bothered about using the site anyway or not that savvy when it comes to using it, either way, it makes you less likely to want to connect with that person as they’re less likely to respond (or know how to respond). If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right.

3. Paint a vivid picture and make each check-in count.  When you check-in consider adding a photograph to your check-in and possibly even a comment too.  Why are you visiting that particular place?  Is there a helpful tip you could leave for other visitors?  If it’s a place or business you really love to visit what could you do to encourage others to visit here too? Foursquare check-ins from friends are far more interesting to read if there’s a bit of a story behind the check-in as well.

4. Engage with others. Whether it’s businesses, people, or whatever – ask questions, leave tips, if you visit a lot of the same types of places create a list, and don’t forget to leave constructive feedback and complement the good businesses you visit – not only does it help them to improve or know what they are doing well, it might even get you a discount the next time you visit!

5. Regularly monitor and assess your use. This one may only sound relevant to businesses, but it’s equally important for individuals too.  Foursquare, like most other social media sites, is constantly evolving and improving so it’s worth spending a little time reviewing your own practises in order to get the most out of it.  How often you do this will largely depend on what time you have available and there are tools out there to help.  At the end of the day, you want to know that your efforts on Foursquare are not in vain, so look at sites, like Klout, that integrate with Foursquare and measure the social impact your profile has.  Also, new widgets are popping up all the time, and it’s worth integrating Foursquare with your website/blog and other social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, to maximise your exposure.

Some subjects clearly lend themselves perfectly to geocaching, such as physical education, maths, geography, and so on, where you can find many ways of embedding activities that incorporate aspects of good old exercise, working with numbers, and exploring the natural environment. At an event over the summer I helped deliver a workshop with a colleague from Yorkshire Coast College about how geocaching could be used for staff development and that planted the seed for how I’d go about placing my own geocaches to enrich a subject that I am passionate about – Classics – a subject which is, admittedly, more challenging to embed into geocaching.

(Photograph taken from the Official Bettany Hughes website, reproduced with kind permission from Bettany Hughes).

I focussed on Classics, the study of those great civilisations of ancient Greece and Rome that has given us so much, partly through a genuine love for the subject and partly because the subject is sadly disappearing from our education system. Bettany Hughes, the current president of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (JACT), whom many will know from her Channel 4 documentaries about the ancient world, has done a lot of work to champion this particular cause.  According to a recent survey carried out by JACT, 70-76% of pupils in 1,000 schools across the UK all wanted to learn Latin, Greek and Classical civilisation, but the sad fact is that Classics Teachers are retiring at an alarming rate and only 17% of state schools now teach Classics.  My fear is that in this austere age of spiralling university fees and worrying unemployment figures, our children will no longer even have the choice to study such a rich subject, which, in my opinion, would be a terrible loss.

So how can geocaching help?

Well, I wanted to place a number of geocaches that raised awareness about Classics in the hope of encouraging others to explore the subject further by illustrating, through the geocaches themselves, a small fraction of some of the things the ancients have given us. There are many angles you could take to do this, but I decided to use one of the more popular myths as a backdrop for my geocaching trail – the story of Odysseus and his heroic adventures after the Trojan war, as told by Homer. Why this particular story? As well as being in the canon of classical literature it’s also an enchanting story and one that has stayed with me for many years.  We always remember inspirational teachers, and for me and thousands of others who attended my old Comprehensive and studied Classics, Mr Johnson was that inspirational teacher.  Mr Johnson breathed life into Homer: Odysseus’ adventures were performed in every detail. In the true spirit of oral storytelling he took on the voices of all the characters, and every object in the classroom was a prop, whether it was a window-opening pole used as a weapon to blind the cyclops, or the deadly accuracy of a thrown chalk-rubber to simulate Odysseus firing arrows at the greedy suitors (yes, it was before the time of IWBs).  In fact, without Mr Johnson’s memorable, if unorthodox, teaching methods I probably wouldn’t be writing this post today.

My point is, because everyone remembers great stories that echo our own personal truths in some way, a geocaching trail linked to such a story will be equally memorable. For me, geocaching is all about the experience. It’s about leaving an indelible footprint on someone’s mind that’s pleasing to remember, and if that footprint involved an odyssey into the realms of Greek myth then my work here is done.

English Heritage have also been quick to bring history alive with geocaching by introducing new audiences to the gems of the past via exciting geocaching trails around the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey. Granted, it simply wouldn’t have been possible to place my own geocaching trail in the archaeological ruins of ancient Greece, but that’s not to say I couldn’t place geocaches in beautiful local settings that reflect the encounters on Odysseus’ journey in some way (after all, there are guidelines when placing geocaches, and cache owners need to be in a position to maintain their own geocaches should any issues arise).  For example, the Sirens encounter takes place at sea, so the geocache needs to be near water, similarly, the cyclops encounter takes place in a cave, and I’m lucky enough to live near some dank, eery caves at Anston Stones, and for the land of the lotus eaters, anywhere with fields of beautiful flowers would capture the scene perfectly, and so on. You get the idea, with a little help from a GPS device geocaching can transport people to lands that they never even knew existed; places that are either remarkable in some way or have a beauty all of their own.

 (A fellow geocacher who was first to discover the hidden cache at Calypso’s Isle, the first of the series).

I had the imagination and local knowledge to place the geocaches in some interesting places to visit, but there still remained the issue of subtly introducing aspects of Homer’s poetry to the geocaches. With any geocache, the people looking for it are typically given a description, coordinates, attributes (these tell you more about the geocache site, i.e. is it accessible to wheelchair users, is there parking nearby, etc), and sometimes a hint which you may look at if you’re struggling.  Perfect: the hint could take any form of your choosing, the whole point of a hint is that it’s slightly obscure, but gives some clues of where to look if you’re flummoxed. So there’s no reason why the hints couldn’t be quotations taken from Homer, that allude in some way to the true location of the geocache. What better way to introduce people to Homer than have the words of Homer help them to find what they are looking for!

I won’t give too much more away about my geocaching trail, because the real fun and learning takes place by actually doing the trail for yourself. If you are in the South Yorkshire area and decide to give geocaching a go, start off by creating a Profile at geocaching.com (it’s free), download the geocaching app if you have a smart phone, and begin your odyssey on the tranquil isle of Ogygia in the company of the sea nymph Calypso (look for geocache GC2TW1D on the geocaching website)…

Oh, and while you’re at it, why not take a copy of Homer’s Odyssey with you for company? You may just discover a whole lot more than you ever imagined.  

But before we all deactivate our social media accounts and hearken back to those halcyon days before the internet age, hang on, whether we like it or not, we can’t turn back time, but we can minimise the risks.  The need to tighten up on safeguarding and protect learners is often emphasised by educators, but these same lessons are equally important for staff too within a learning environment who often get overlooked when guidance is lacking.

Such musings lead to my colleague, Kevin Campbell-Wright, and I considering how we could put together a package that could be used for staff development purposes to raise awareness about issues of e-safety, digital inclusion, and managing that sometimes challenging overlap between our online personal and professional lives.  The days when our home and office life were clearly divided ended when we started leaving digital footprints all over the internet. Now, for many of us who manage multiple social media accounts, striking that balance between protecting our privacy and  sharing information can be tricky to get right.   It’s also incredibly tricky to get across the importance of your digital footprint in a balanced and original way, that neither strikes the fear of god into people, resulting in often knee-jerk reactions to social media, nor trivialises the subject with frivolous examples.

Still, we both like a challenge!

There’s nothing like a deadline to motivate you into action and the annual Learning Resources Conference was quickly approaching and we were both on the programme to deliver a workshop on the subject of managing your digital footprint.  Googling your name, of course, is a very quick and easy way of checking up on your digital footprint, and there are lots of sites, like Digital Tattoo, that offer advice and guidance on the subject of digital identity.  However, we’d both seen the ‘google yourself’ thing done many times before and we wanted to deliver something that was more fun yet also conveyed the complexity of how our personal and professional connections can interrelate across networks to create some unexpected outcomes.

I’m not quite sure how we arrived at the idea of using balls of wool, chinese whispers and cut-out bits of card to deliver the workshop, but sometimes the most bizarre experiments can be the most fun!

Allow me to explain: The people in the workshop had to assume the role of an alter ego, all of whom used a range of different social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Foursquare and so on.  Apart from the person who had to play the character of Tom, henceforth known as doubting Tom, because he didn’t believe in social media, oh no, it was all stupid and pointless.  Some of the characters in our play knew each other in personal life, some worked together, some socialised together, some were only connected through social media, some were not connected at all, but became connected – confusing isn’t it?  Oh yes, just like real life…

Picture this: there’s a leaving-do in the local pub for someone who has been made redundant due to cutbacks, a sad occasion where a couple of people have a little too much to drink.  All of the characters in our little play (apart from doubting Tom) then play out a series of interactions based on the repercussions following the leaving-do, which are shared to various people through their social media sites (the strings of wool are used to show both their real and virtual connections and the cut-out cards impart all the action in a linear fashion).

A variety of mishaps and unexpected benefits come to light in the actions that follow, all of which are clearly based on real-life situations which highlight the pitfalls but also the advantages of what social media sites can provide.  I won’t spoil the plot too much, as it would feel a little like telling you the ending to a good film, but needless to say the scenarios that unfold are all designed to provoke a discussion on how we use social media, and, most importantly, how we can use it more safely and responsibly.

To summarise, here are some of the key points that came out of the discussions that followed the roleplay exercise:-

1. Just because you don’t use social media sites (such as in the case of Tom) doesn’t mean to say that you don’t already have a presence on them.
2. Social media sites can add an important paragogical dimension to teaching and learning (i.e. peer-to-peer or peer-based teaching and learning between equals).
3. Not being on social media sites can be quite isolating, as many face-to-face activities are organised through social media networks.
4. If you solely focus on a professional persona using social media you risk alienating people who like to see more of the real person. In contrast, the same could also be said of focussing too much on a personal persona – the line people draw between the two will vary.
5. Exploring safety and privacy settings on social media sites is always recommended, but it’s also important that your friends who may also be sharing information about you are equally informed.

Of course, one of the beauties of this activity is that you could do it all over again and I don’t doubt that different issues would also arise, depending on the group, but for me that’s perfectly fine.  The important thing is, after all, to have the debate and make our staff and learners aware of how social media can be put to best use, and also what to avoid.

If you like our idea and are not afraid to try something different, Kevin and I have designed a lesson plan, character cards for the roleplay, the action cards and a brief powerpoint that we are happy to share with people who want to try this in their own learner or staff development sessions.

Failing that, you could always get your staff and learners to google themselves…

First of all, apologies for the delay in posting my thanks to everyone involved in the annual Learning Resources Conference 2011, Empowering the Digital Natives, held last Thursday at the National Railway Museum in York. I had a thoroughly enjoyable day and was extremely impressed by all the speakers, the delegates for getting stuck in, and, of course, the RSC staff who did much of the organising behind the scenes, without whom the day would not have run as smoothly as it did.

A special mention has to go to our Events Officer, Jo Hargreaves, who did an amazing job chasing up all the loose ends and generally being on hand throughout the entire planning process and the day to step in when needed (you may have seen Jo dashing between the workshops to take many of the photos above).  Thanks Jo, you’re a star!

I remember chatting to Jane Secker on the day about the problem with blogging is when you have lots to blog about you’re always too busy to blog, but when you do have the time (which is rare) you can never think of something to blog about! I’m sure there’s a lesson in time management in there somewhere… Perhaps the key is to do short posts and do them regularly, rather than obsess about every detail in every post.

With that in mind, I’ll keep this very short: I hope you enjoy looking through the photos from the event and here are a couple of audioboos that my colleague, Kevin Campbell-Wright, recorded with delegates reflecting on the day:

1. Here’s @nathancobb talking about this morning at #lrcon11
2. Over lunch @jsecker talks about her contribution to #lrcon11

So how come the term has worked its way back into circulation?

Perhaps one reason could be that digital literacy’s just as relevant now as it was back then, in fact, probably more so, because there’re more digital tools out there than ever before to explore.  In the last ten years we’ve seen the rise of smart phones, i-Pads and tablets, social networking, VLEs and PLEs, micro-blogging, 3D technologies, QR Codes, ereaders and ebooks, geolocation based sites, such as geocaching and Foursquare, to name but a fraction of the developments.  With all of these digital tools to pull out of the bag to meet the increasing demands of delivering learning in new and engaging ways, is it really any wonder digital literacy remains at the fore?

I’ve previously been criticised for using the phrase ‘digital tools’, as some people (I am told) are prone to misinterpret what you mean by that.  For me tools implies something that you work with to get a job done, the tool in itself is not that important – it’s a tool to help you achieve your aims.  So by ‘digital tools’ I basically mean an umbrella term for absolutely anything you might use to get the job done, whether it’s social media, VLEs, mobile devices or practically anything else you can imagine that’s digital in nature.  I make no apology for using the term and will continue to use it, because getting the job done is the important thing, not the tool.

Semantics aside, digital literacy does have a number of elements to it that makes it tricky to pin down.  To illustrate this point I’ve been working with a number of people recently using a digital tool called Diigo to manage, share and present useful links relevant to digital literacy.  If you haven’t tried Diigo before, I can recommend it as an excellent way of sharing your online links with peers on topics of mutual interest. It’s free and easy to set up and not only is it a great way of discovering new sites relevant to you, but it also gives you the HTML code to copy and paste so you can present tag clouds within your website/blog, as with the example above.

If you’re interested in digital literacy and would like to know more about it, have a browse through the links above, and if you’re already on Diigo and have some relevant links to share get in touch.

(Image provided by Speedygroundhog, available on Flickr under the Creative Commons licence).

If there’s one thing I absolutely love doing whilst travelling it’s visiting ruins, especially those of ancient Greece and Rome.

There’s something about visiting ancient ruins that I find fascinating (forgive me my tangent whilst I go off on one for a couple of indulgent sentences – don’t worry, I’ll move on to Foursquare in a minute).  I guess it’s partly because ancient ruins offer us a window into the past and allow our imaginations to wander. What must it have been like to have lived back then?  To have seen the gladiators fight it out in the Colosseum?  To have sweated it out in the Roman Baths?  And to have witnessed the thrill of a chariot race at the Circus Maximus?

Anyway, back to reality!

I was visiting the ancient sites in Cyprus this summer and met up with a local friend, Marius, who works for the Department of Antiquities.  We got chatting about how Foursquare could be used to promote and drive traffic to the ancient sites of Cyprus.  I was quite surprised that the Department of Antiquities had not exploited Foursquare already, in the same way that English Heritage in the UK has promoted historic sites of interest. Recent reports in the Metro indicate more than ten million people are currently on Foursquare with an estimated three million check-ins being made each day, that’s a significant audience that’s well worth tapping in to for any business wanting to increase the footfall of its customers, especially as Foursquare have now made it even easier for businesses to create their own page.

My Cypriot friend had not come across Foursquare before, but was quite surprised at how easily it was to add a place and leave tips for other users. It does make you wonder how many other fledgling businesses are out there that either don’t know about or aren’t taking advantage of sites like Foursquare…  According to an article in the Guardian quoting Foursquare founder, Dennis Crowley, the site is all “about encouraging adventure” and so, for me, Foursquare lends itself perfectly to discovering the architectural skeletons of the past as well as businesses of the future.

Here’s the Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Kouklia that I added to demonstrate to Marius how quick and easy it is to add places to Foursquare:

Incidentally, the sanctuary itself is well worth visiting, as it’s where the cult of Aphrodite was officially established on Cyprus in c. 1500 BC, with the building of a hilltop temple at Kouklia.  One way you can alert friends to your favourite places (which is very easy to miss) is to click the HTML button attached to each place, encircled in red in the image above, which gives you the HTML code to embed into your website or blog.  For ancient ruins or modern businesses, this is a great way of alerting people to places that they would not have otherwise known about.

The HTML creates the button below, so if you’re already on Foursquare and you’re curious about visiting the most important cult site to Aphrodite in the world then click on the button below to add it to your To Do List!