- Security
- Privacy
- Intellectual Property
- Credibility
- Information Overload
The following video nicely summarizes the trail of information or "Digital Dossier" left behind as an individual and their network of friends, family, and associates who utilize technology to search for and share information.
3 comments:
I enjoyed Palfrey's session- some of the items that stood out for me: 1) Palfrey’s research has indicated no increase in crime with internet social networking; kids at risk in real life environments are the same kids at risk in online environments. 2) Research does indicate that kids do not truly appreciate the digital footprints they are leaving. They are able to discuss stories and antidotes, but do not relate to them personally. (Typical growth & development knowledge here).
3) Finally, interesting point was affirmation that ownership and copyright law are currently muddy- how much can we clip, snip, and merge without violating copyright law. His point was that even the experts (lawyers?- are they the experts? ) are divided equally on the issue. He is one of the lawyers fighting the “Obama” poster lawsuit wherein a photographer is suing an artist who used his photo to create a campaign poster.
Good point with the copyright issue and muddiness.
From perhaps a social science perspective and from a question posed on Google wave -- if youth see themselves in person and on-line as one and the same as Palfrey contends -- how do we direct, suggest, empower young people to consider the potential "digital dossier" implications should their digital footprint be less than appropriate?
Palfrey identified a question he contends we faculty should be thinking about: "Are we developing a culture to ensure that ALL Kids (students) are more sophisticated in their use of digital media (especially social media)?" He related this to that fact that although most youth today are digital natives, many are unsophisticated in their use of the media and don't understand or are not mindful (or don't care) that they may be speaking to unintended audiences or may be stealing copyrighted materials. He talks of the role of faculty/teachers/parents in developing digital citizens (e.g., critical thinkers/responsible users who do good), and of teaching the implications of the indelible nature of the material students put online in social media contexts. He stated that these "digital natives" don't see a difference between their online life and their offline life and talked of "digital tattoos". That is, that youth (or, we, for that matter) may write/tweet/video/depict/etc. their life (or "put down" or bully someone, etc.)in some way that they may want to remove when they're older... but that it is difficult, if not impossible, to remove from the digital dossier. He also talked of the online community replacing the mall which replaced the commons, but that the online community (unlike the mall or the commons) will have the searchable and replicable record of what happened.
The video, Digital Dossier (see Tom's post above), was developed by one of Palfrey's students in response to a class assignment; it is Palfrey's contention that faculty need to develop students' creativity and to trust that students can do good, creative work using the digital media. (His exact words were, "We need to have the guts to trust these kids.") He used his student's video, Digital Dossier, as an example of the good work that students can do to get across a message in creative ways. He stressed the important role that digital media can have in allowing students to develop their creativity. He also alluded to the fact that multi-media (such as the video his student did) can enhance communicating a message. [The old: " A picture's worth a thousand words, and a symbol's worth a thousand pictures" kind of thing.}
Palfrey then when on to identify a model reflecting sophistication of students' use of the Internet for getting credible sources for current events or for their research work. His research showed that 100 per cent of the students he surveyed used Google to search out Wikipedia to answer the research question or to get the information they needed, and that most did not dig deeper than that. Most students then felt that they had the answer to the question and would cut and paste the answer, rotely. We need to teach for and place demands on students using a different model, according to Palfrey, one that allows for the "grazing" for information, but then demands that students "deep dive" and then engage a "feedback loop" -- write about it and share with friends.
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