Every action, comment and picture that we upload to the internet has the possibility of being available to view. FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!
This is troublesome, as we are not always in control of what gets posted about us on the internet. Even someone snapping an unfavourable photo of you having a few drinks at a party and uploading it to Facebook without your consent can be damaging to your reputation.
Thankfully Facebook now has an option that allows you to approve all 'tags' before they show up on your profile.
Despite knowing this, there have been occasions I can recall where 'unfavourable' content has been posted about myself or other friends online, nothing drastic but just some things that would be better not publicly available.
Having been online since I was 15, it would have been great for schools to implement an awareness campaign about these issues when I was younger.
This issue will continue to grow though, consider how many babies are online before they are even BORN (ultrasound pics) and whose parents post hundreds of photos of them on Facebook as they grow up. I'm sure we all have people on our Facebook who do this!
This is how I would approach my Digital Footprint Awarness Campaign:
1. Background Research - conduct in-depth research into the number of school aged children using the internet and social media sites, in particular Youtube, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
Research school aged childrens opinion on online behaviour, what awareness they have of the dangers, and questions such as: if they are aware but are still undertaking risky behaviour - why is that?
2. Define the goals and objectives - eg. to ensure that 80% of school aged children are taught how to communicate appropriately online and the repercussions of not doing so. Another goal could be to educate parents as well.
This would be a MASSIVE campaign, so it's something that the government would need to implement.
3. Target Market - any children of the age where they are using and surfing the internet, as well as parents of these children.
4. Key Messages - "Your online activity never disappears", "Take care with what you do and post online, it will be available to be seen for years to come", "Teach your child about the appropriate online behaviour so it doesn't affect their future".
5. Strategy - while Keith mentioned that these types of skills could possibly be the domain of parents, I believe that it may be up to the schools and government to help implement a wide-spread campaign.
The reason for this is two-fold, firstly, this is an incredibly new issue. 99% of parents would not have had any experience in the subject and as such are probably ill prepared to teach their children.
Secondly, as mentioned in class, learning institutions often teach the 'soft skills' required by students in the workforce/general life.
As such, I recommend that units of 'internet in everyday life' are embedded into the school curriculum from a very young age, and built upon every year. The internet is such a large part of life now that it's necessary, and I feel this is the only way that it would reach a large enough number of children for it to be beneficial running a campaign.
6. Channels - face-to-face teacher interaction, examples of all forms of internet communication in the classroom, newsletters to parents, tv advertising.
7. Legal and Ethical Issues - there would be some issues with this campaign. One of them being that possibly not all children would have access to the internet at the time of teaching. However, they would still have access via other sources such as the library, friends houses and more than likely will have extended access in the future so it is still worthwhile for these students.
8. Timeline - a realistic timeline rollout for this campaign would be 5 years, with quite a bit of evaluation along the way, including feedback from children, parents and teachers.
This is my idea and I'm looking forward to reading everyone elses! :)
A x
Great ideas and clear thiinking. But its not a massive roll-out of the campaign, it only needs to start with a few thoughts, ideas and perhaps...just perhaps a new awareness campaign for Central PR students to roll-out :) well done.
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