My Personal Digital Foot Print, And How to Help My Students With Theirs

If you google Nicole Terry, you first get a small banner of pictures of what I am assuming are "Nicole Terrys" but none are me. As you go down the list, the next post is a list of the "Nicole Terrys" on Facebook, a website of essays written by a Nicole Terry (not me), and then a list of "Nicole Terrys" on LinkedIn. Then another website that is not me, two youtube channels, not me again, and then, finally, my twitter account.

So if people just googled my name on the first page, you will find my twitter account. I am looking for myself "incognito" on google chrome, so it is as if a stranger is looking for me. On my twitter you will find silly quotes, my dogs, my cat, things about FFA, and things about education. No cussing, inappropriate pictures, or bashing of other people on there.

My Nicole Terry Facebook, I am not even one of the top searches anywhere. My Facebook is private, and only for my family and friends. Nothing on there is inappropriate by any means, but I did have it since high school, and like most high school students I would post moody things.

I have an app on my iPhone called TimeHop, and everyday it sends me the tweets and Facebook posts I posted in the past on that day. When I first got it, it was really fun. I saw my old posts on dog shows I won, pictures of old friends, really neat to sit there and take in some memories. Then I started getting posts from when I was a teenager. I never did anything that could get me in trouble, but I didn't post the kindest thing either. There was one post from when my parents were getting divorced, and I was angry with my mother, I wrote a paragraph about "what a mother was" and "how mine did not live up to those expectations" as my Facebook status. Now, I will never take away how I felt, but it really wasn't something I should have posted. Looking at my friends list at that time, would have I have told that to some of those people in person? No, so why did I post it for them to read online?

I read stories all the time of young teenagers losing friends, scholarships, getting kicked off of sports teams, suspended, and even expelled from post they have made online. I am lucky that, never posted things that cause that too me, but I did make mistakes.

The new school I am moving too is not one to one yet, but will be in a few years. Even though I am an agriculture teacher, I will share my online experiences with my students. I will stress, "if you don't want that audience to see it, then don't post it."

After taking some time googling myself and adding my town and college to the search, I can only find my twitter, LinkedIn, things I was involved in at Purdue, and some results from the dog shows. They only thing I can really be embarrassed about are some of my placings at the dog shows. :)