I’ve been doing some informal research of late in my travels, asking some of the principals and administrators that I meet the following question: When you have some applicants lined up for a teaching vacancy, do you “Google” them? Seems a pretty large majority say that yes, they do take some time to see what a standard Google search might pull up about a potential hire. And some even admit to doing a cursory MySpace search to see what comes up. In most cases, they say that the intent is primarily to find out if there is anything negative that surfaces. Almost all of them admit, however, that finding positive things about their applicants, as in portfolios or collaborations or even social sites, does or could make a positive difference in the process.
But then I ask them something along these lines: So if you are Googling people who you might want to teach at your school, what are you doing to insure the kids in your classrooms are “Googled well” when they go for their own interviews? And I don’t just mean telling them NOT to post certain things online. I mean what are you doing to help students shape their online portfolios so that when their future employers or future mates run the search, what they find is not just a lack of negatives but a potential plethora of positives? Not surprisingly, the answer is basically “not much.”
If we know that it’s becoming more and more commonplace to use the Web to assess backgrounds and “social capital,” and we’re doing it in our own hiring processes, when are we going to make that connection in terms of how it relates to our kids’ futures?
Would love to hear what your schools do in terms of doing “background” searches on potential teachers.
(Photo “Just Expressing Her Opinion” by Cayusa.)
I’ve done this when hiring staff – particularly as one of our criteria was directly in relation to their knowledge of Web 2.0. We wanted to know if they were operating in this world. A couple of candidates had a presence, but the majority came to interviews and had no knowledge of what Web 2.0 meant. I’ve been talking to our senior students about their digital footprint and even my Yr 7 class. Using the Think before you post Youtube videos has been one of the most effective tools for getting the message across that you don’t want people making assumptions of you based on an image that doesn’t necessarily reflect the person you are.
I think we’ve used this notion of Googling as a bad thing. I like the idea of working with students to “shape” their online presence into something that can work for them. So far at my school we are still in reaction mode. An unfortunate incident with a student and MySpace that drew terrible national attention to our school has made administration nervous about even addressing this in a positive way.
At one time, the big deal was that each of my first graders had their own “business” card that pointed the recipient back to our website. Now I have to rethink that paper product and translate it into a digital product. Interesting 😉
I find it interesting that you are having this discussion while in my district the board and administrators have just developed an even more stringent network/internet policy which prohibits, among other things, identifying a student by anything other than his/her first name and labeling student pictures with generic titles such as “Student Athletes” or “Elementary Students”.
In other words, we might identify the student of the month as Jan without posting her picture. Or we might post an article about Solo and Ensemble contest identifying Bill as receiving a 1 for Men’s solo while posting a picture of all of the participants – as long as he is not the only male.
Obviously the fear of cyber-stalking and lawsuits is at the heart of this. Our students will have no “Google footprint” that is school shaped at all.
I see what David is saying and feel that is the majority of schools. Kids during the school day will leave no “Google footprint” since districts are concerned about using pictures and full names. However, what are they doing outside of school hours? It is a great question to ask, are we making kids “Googable” and I know when I go for interviews or into districts I always use Google to do some quick recon work (heck I just googled “recon work”). Very interesting question, I have no answer…..again!
Districts need to be concerned about using student photos and full names….it is a matter of legal concern. Parents need to sign a permission to publish document in my state, justifiably so. I’m assuming most states have this protection in law.
I teach at the university level and intend to deliberately add a section to my course to address this very issue. I don’t always teach education majors, but I think a unit in how to build and market yourself on-line is sensible for professionals. I intend to do a presentation for our faculty members to make them a bit more aware of ways they can use web 2.0 tools to advance their research, recruiting, connections with colleagues and alumni, etc.
In the K-12 arena, I know it is all more difficult.
I’m thinking students may have an over-representation of “dubious-quality” material/info online waiting to be Googled due to the fact that most schools do not allow the use of student last names to be put on the web through official school channels. (Correct me if I’m wrong on that policy.) This would seem to disconnect students from much of the best stuff they may have done/put online.
This is not to say that schools cannot teach students about ways to put their best foot forward and how to intelligently manage their online image, even with such policies in place.
Excuse the redundancy of my last comment. It was begun before the other similar comments were posted. (Schooliness got in the way).
I can’t help but think of Edwin Land’s quote:
“Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.”
I’ll admit that it’s important that students be aware of what they post online, but I think this is a two-way street. I’ve made goofy online videos, and I’ve used social networks with my friends. I know there are things I’ve posted online that aren’t wrong, aren’t unethical or immoral or illegal or blasphemous…but that still might make people uncomfortable.
Where do you draw the line when discussing this topic with students? Do you teach them to always try to be anonymous online, always limit your profile to friends only, and put on a face of being a perfect, non-offensive, person? Or do you teach them that they need to be who they are, even though there will always be people and employers who would judge them for it?
I think it’s very important for students to understand they WILL be ‘Googled’ when they apply for college, jobs, etc. and that they need to mold their online presence.
We’ve set up middle schoolers with avatars for their online life and hope this carries over to whatever else they’re doing online (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) They can create the profile they want to showcase for others later when they are ready and have worthwhile content.
I teach information literacy skills as part of a public library after school program, as well as doing consulting work for a private school, and at both places I have started to include “social capital†or the student’s “digital footprint†as part of the instruction on internet safety. With increasing news reports of cyberstalking and cyberbullying, students and staff need to be aware that the internet is a very thin veil to hide behind. I think some users understand this as well, as shown by the Pew Report on Digital Footprints that noted an increase in users who self-search for information about themselves. The challenge is to get everyone to forget about the media and just concentrate on the messages that students and staff are sending out.
Steve Dembo has used an example of an Iowa high school where seniors are required to “rig Google.” They post content with their full names and images.
I’ve been after Steve for the URL which he gave me but was a 404.
Anyway, I’ve bee posturing this idea with teachers and students for a while now. Minimizing the scare talk and maximizing the positive results of knowing how to rig the system.
I sat in an informal meeting with our Asst Superintendent one day. As the others were arriving, she was “Googling” the student teachers who were assigned to the district that semester. I jokingly asked if she had Googled me before hiring, and she replied, “of course”.
Are we training our students to use the web to their benefit when it comes to interviews? I think schools *are* afraid to encourage Facebook/MySpace, blogging, and YouTubing because of the “bad eggs”, yet right infront of my own eyes, the administration is using those tools to check out the very people that get to stand before the students everyday. Maybe a double standard, or just a liability factor?
Great questions to ask. I have a friend who is Dean of Admissions at a university and she has told me in just the last weeks that they google every accepted applicant before their acceptance materials go out. These 21st century high school grads have to wise up!
Eleventh graders build their research portfolio online. Use the history button to watch their papers develop: http://theresearchproject.wikispaces.com/
I believe Google is becoming more and more popular. I think that it is very important for kids to understand that whatever they post on the internet may affect their job someday. I think that teachers should help students with building good sites rather than just stressing the importance of it.
Hello, Will,
This one actually pretty easy to teach —
Step 1: if you are interacting online, post quality content.
Step 2: if you have an online presence, navigate to that home page without being logged in — what do you see?
Step 3: Google yourself, and see what turns up.
Step 4: If you’re serious about it, get yourself an online home — and yes, by this, I mean a blog, and not a facebook/myspace account.
Step 5: Have I mentioned, post quality content?
It’s not like every post has to be a gem, but steps should be taken to avoid putting obvious crud online.
Cheers,
Bill
Seriously, if you read any SEO stuff, one of the things they mention repeatedly is the importance of
@ Bill – in theory what you are saying makes sense and works great with adults, but when you bring adolescents into the picture with adolescent brains, it doesn’t work to just say post positive stuff. Hence the failure of the drug war to “just say no.” Many more factors come into play.
With their brains not thinking about the future consequences of their actions, it takes a conscious collaborative effort from their entire support group (family, school, community) to keep them on the right track, as with everything else. It is just that right now too few adults understand the issue of digital identities and so I think we are going to have a generation of digital Guinea Pigs that we all learn from.
Plus I think we, as a society, will be more open to knowing our adolescent years were all recorded online…forever.
I wrote more about this on our blog for those interested.
Thanks for the comment Tom. I think the Guinea Pig reference is spot on. What Stephen Heppel calls the “Lost Generation” of kids that are in schools while the people running them are trying to “get it.” Just another reason why we have to make all of this a part of the way we do business in our systems.
There is also the concern that people often have the same names, so it could be easy to get incorrect information when googling for information.
I read a story about new parents will google names before giving it to their child to see what was already out there with the same name. I have an easy time with my last name 🙂
We google every applicant. We also take them to lunch but then ask them to drive to see if they are slobs. We’re starting an inservice with all of our freshmen on their web footprints and what they want people to know.
Hey Charlie,
Do you have a set of slides for your inservice? I would love to cross share with our program for freshman > link to our slides
I believe this is becoming such a common experience that we as educators need to be aware of our own images online. Flip that around and what do parents find out when they Google their children’s teachers? In today’s world, we each as educators, should, IMHO, have an online identity. I’m a doctoral student at Pepperdine University. In the first semester’s course work we googled ourselves to see what was there if anything. Many were surprised. Not only do we need to teach students about blogging and what their online presence says be we as teachers need to get on board and get online. I’m one of those digital immigrants and having been doing the blog thing regularly just this year. I have learned so much. I can’t imagine not being out there now. Thanks for your book and your thoughts.
Now that is a great point that I hadn’t thought of, Linda. It would be interesting to ask what administrators would want to have happen when their teachers get Googled. Thanks for pushing the thinking.
@ Tom — what I’m saying wrt posting good stuff makes sense in theory, and only in theory, with just about any sentient being regardless of age. In practice, it’s never that simple, for countless reasons. Bad judgement lives on well past adolescence; for anecdotal confirmation, just drive cross-town during rush hour 🙂
It’s comparable to working with writers and encouraging them to vary sentence length and pay attention to verb choice: some will get it and apply it, some will say they get it and ignore it, some will try and have a hard time with it, and some won’t get past the mechanics of it. Just because we’re not going to have universal success doesn’t mean we shouldn’t introduce the concept.
The comparison to the drug war is fairly off base — the “just say no” campaign was flawed in countless ways, and attributing its failure to an incomplete understanding of the adolescent brain seems analogous to saying the Titanic sunk due to cold weather — it was a factor, but a small one. But, when the just say no campaign started, my favorite record was Let Them Eat Jellybeans, so I probably didn’t fall within their demographic 🙂
In teaching any topic, I try and look at comprehension as a factor of time. There’s what I want them to know now, the process by which they can begin to understand it, and the tools you provide them to adapt the ideas and own/refine them over time. Providing a model of awareness re online identity, and accompanying that model with the vocabulary with which to discuss online behavior, provides an informed foundation to the conversation. An informed foundation is a good starting point, no matter the age.
I completely agree with you on at least trying something as we really aren’t trying anything right now. I thought you were laying out a map for “the solution.”
Do you think it’s possible to have a standard curriculum in which to teach Digital Identities, keeping in mind the exponential rate at which technology is changing?
In terms of “Just Say No” I know this lawyer/speaker who’s spoken at many college campuses and his whole program on Myspace/Facebook is about scaring the students into not using the tools and basically just saying no because he tries to scares them into saying they are too dangerous. I draw the parallel to that program and the fear factor of the drug war and how I don’t think that is effect.
Oddly enough, just this week I had a terrific conversation with a high-school teacher who recently had reason to incorporate a “thinking about myspace” lesson into her curriculum.
While she typically doesn’t google her students for fear of what she might discover, curiosity got the better of her one night–and she was shocked by what she found. After a long, great conversation about myspace pages as representations of ourselves to the outside world (including admissions officers, scholarship committees, etc.) her students and even some colleagues are much more aware of the benefits and risks of online presence.
I’m sure she won’t be the only teacher who finds a space for this kind of lesson in the coming years.
Great questions!
My district was thrilled to welcome Steve Dembo (Teach42) this week. He spoke to this very subject during a community night and at all three district high schools.
http://snipurl.com/dembo
He discussed both the positive and negative aspects of maintaining an online footprint. He also delved into strategies for cleaning up an online image and taking control of the course of future Googled search results.
I can tell you that for many parents this was totally eye-opening. For many teachers, it was terrifying (mostly because educational systems are still struggling with how to address these issues in school.) I found it inspiring. It was so refreshing to hear a message about online persona that was NOT “MySpace, Facebook, YouTube = evil.”
I encourage you to visit his Discovery blog (snipped link above) to see what he presented.
I have a lot to learn on this topic. Could we have students still do this using their pseudos or screen names. During their last quarter at school when most are 18 anyway (maybe get parents to sign off?) show them how to associate their professional names with their screen names so when they graduate they can be google-able?
I am not sure that I am in favour of the idea to train classroom students so when they’ll be grown ups and go to find jobs they will be well googled. To be more precise, this approach troubles me. Such an approach holds a threat of these students being too much busy with a target far in their future, instead of using the net freely, joyfully, to learn, play and collaborate, in a way that fits their desires and wishes now, not for some vague future. Too much doing for showing how good you are some day in the future may limit their creativity and the personal expression of their own voice.
Hmmmm – good point Yoram. I think it isn’t something we should over teach too much because the digital world is going to look waaay different in 10 years when jr. high kids our out of school.
I do think students should be made aware of the concept of a digital identity. Not to scare them into being less creative, but I would say to excite them to be more creative online.
I don’t think “creativity and the personal expression of their own voice” are at odds with a positive personal identity.
Hi Tom
I didn’t think about the point you have raised – “the digital world is going to look waaay different in 10 years when jr. high kids our out of school”. I admit I didn’t think about it. When I asked my wife (who is a teacher in higth school), she has raised the same point.
Thank you
IMHO, it’s not just about what will happen to these kids when they grow up and start applying for jobs. It’s also about what happens to them NOW when they’re applying for jobs, for college, for scholarships.
I agree with Tom that positive personal identity online does not preclude personal expression and enjoyment..at least, it shouldn’t. i hope.
It’s just a gut instinct here but I think we should be teaching them how Google works if we want them to be able to use it to shape their own footprint…Obviously this is done at different depths of detail for different developmental levels.
So literacy of the technology itself … SEO, tags, rankings, analytics, facial recognition, sematic applications…tools like ‘lijit’ – the nuts and bolts of why and how Google displays results – these are as important as knowing any and all of the other wonderful ideas mentioned.
Thanks, great post!
Great ideas! I just googled several of my freshmen and was pleased to find our class wiki at the top of most of the lists.
Just thinking out loud here – Linda since you are a teacher you are helping them to not just understand their DI, but also forming it for them with the Wiki page, just as a teacher would form other areas of development. So maybe built into each class should be a way to have the teacher put some of the students work online to help them develop their positive DI.
I think making kids “Googlable†could be both good and bad. Sometimes, like my teacher has told us, there will be many people with the same name as you, who have bad things about them on the internet. So it’s not fair to be falsely accused of something that wasn’t you. It is good though because if that person had done something very well, and wanted to be Googled, and colleges were looking, or an employer is looking, then it would be beneficial to them. I think that people should be able to take information of themselves off of the internet. How do you take information about you off of the internet? Because if it is life threatening information, like where you live, where you go to school, what your phone number is, you should be able to take that information off. This is an outstanding blog, many opposing view points. Well done.
I found this post very interesting because no one really thinks about the future when they are putting things about themselves online. It is crucial to one’s future to be aware and cautious of the things you are putting online. Looking at the idea of future employers possible doing a Google search on me is interesting because I never really thought that they would do something like this. It makes sense to see if you can find anything, positive or negative, about the applicant; however it is very important for the applicant to know this is possible and to watch what they are putting online for the world to see. In my opinion, it is very important to begin teaching kids how Google works and begin a steady foundation of online information. Kids need to be educated on what is appropriate to put online. Very interesting post!
Mr. Richardson,
I don’t really think that googling people to find out more things about them is such a good thing. To me it seems like an invasion of privacy. Some people like to put things on their MySpace that don’t really represent who they are. So when an employer is about to hire someone for a really good job, but then they decide not to because there is a cuss word or strange comments on that persons MySpace it just doesn’t seem fair.
When I read this article I thought it would be interesting to Google myself and see what came up. But mostly what came up was my time for the races I ran in Cross country and the things that are on Ms. Smith’s blog. But what I did find was a project that I didn’t do very well on posted by Ms. Smith. I just think that employers should give people a break and see how they are going to do working with you, not based off of what is on a not very reliable social network.
I know some friends who have MySpaces and put things on there that aren’t who they are at all. They tend to post not very appropriate pictures, comments, blogs, and many other things. But my friends are all very good people and aren’t who they say they are on the internet. They all have really good grades, respect themselves, don’t do drugs or alcohol, don’t cuss, and many other good things. So you see the internet isn’t reliable at all.
I agree that teachers are not doing enough to help students with setting up an online presence. I myself would like to have a good online portfolio. But sadly, there are things on my online portfolio that would make me seem like a bad job applicant. For example, when I am Googled, it shows a Youtube video of someone with the same name as me fighting another person. If someone saw this, they would think that I am a person who just beats up on others. I would like the video removed, but I do not know if something like that is possible. The problem with Google is that it has such a vast database that people with the same name as you may ruin your reputation. So the problem with Google is that you really don’t know if the person you are looking up is really that person.
The only solution that I see to a problem like this lies on the employer. The employer needs to really know who they are researching. Sites like Monster.com all have job portfolios that the applicant has created. Maybe it should become more of a requirement to use sites like this other than Google.
Being “googlable†is a scary thought for a young person such as me, who makes mistakes and is growing. It might be a good thing for others to see how someone else grew and learned from their mistakes, but sometimes people do not think that way. How will that affect my future? If I want to go for a job and get goggled and not get hired because of what showed up, I do not want the mistakes made as a child to affect my future. Even though I am not allowed to put my last name online there are many out there with the same last name. I do not want to have to defend things that were not done by me (good or bad). Sometimes it could be a good idea, but I don’t think that is should be done even if there are good things to be found online. There are so many way you could get the wrong information about the person you are goggling especially today with anyone being able to access anything and post any type of information they wanted to.
I think this is a big idea that needs to be addressed more in schools. Many people do not know how to make themselves “Googlable.†I would be one of those students. I have wondered many times of what employers or schools would think if they searched me. I do not always know if what I am posting is a good thing or not and how to change my online portfolio if I find bad things on it. I want to “Googlableâ€, so that I can not only have schools or employers search my name and find no bad items but to also search my name and find good items in the search. I think that there does need to be some education on how to become “Googlable.†I know to fallow the general rule that if you post something, make sure you are aware that anyone can access it. The only question is from there how do I improve my online portfolio? I do not only want to have a portfolio with no bad things on there but to also have things on my online portfolio that are good.
In my personal opinion making kids Googlable is both a good and bad idea. It would be a good idea because it could defiantly show us students and young adults to watch what we put online. For example, not putting too much personal information and no work of yours that is bad. If teachers, collages, and businesses are looking people up online people should probably present them self better than making them look bad. That is why maybe having kids Googlable is a good idea because it can teach us how to us the internet wisely.
There are a few problems though to this idea. If there happens to be too much information about yourself online, false facts, and bad work of yours how do you get it off? Also it is a little creepy knowing that people anywhere can just look you up and find things about you that you probably wouldn’t wanting them to know. I know that if my teachers would be looking at our stuff and what we do online would be weird because our outside life is our personal life and our teachers are only there to teach us not find out the things we do in our lives. That should go with the same with our bosses or collages. Bosses should focus more on what we do in the business not outside of it. Yes they will boundaries and rules and most likely whoever is working for them will follow them. Collages should focus more on the student and their academics not our partying life. Of course most collage students do the same things and they shouldn’t be following up on us all the time by online sources.
Basically I think googling kids isn’t a completely bad thing it just depends what it is being used for.
I don’t have any say in our hiring process, but as our Tech Coordinator, I now do searches in Google, MSN Messenger, G-Talk, Aol, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. If I find their online presence is less than professional, then I have a private one-on-one with them to encourage them to clean it up.
In the case of one new hire, it was evident on his Facebook profile that he was still partying, and unfortunately had added our students as friends to his Facebook account as well. Somewhere he missed the “googlable” message!
Will,
I like your post, it gave me something to think about. A lot of people fail to think about how their Facebooks’ and Myspaces’ can affect their future careers. You are right when you say that most people are more concerned with making sure they have nothing negative about them on the web. I agree that educators should try to help their students not only have no negatives but also have positives. Employers would love to see positive things about their future employees spread across the web. It not only makes the individual look good but also the employer, themself.
I think that maybe educators shouldn’t help make “kids” googable but instead eigth graders and high school students. There is not much to say about little kids on the web, and kids don’t typically apply for jobs until they are in their teens.
I find this entry very eye opening. As a current college student, going into teaching I have never stopped to think about the connection between jobs and online searching. I have not thought of how facebook and myspace and other social networks can have a drastic effect on a “first impression”. I think it is a good tool to use when hiring individuals to see if any possitive/negative qualities show, but I also agree with the importance of teaching young students how to create a possitive impression of themselves. I think that late junior high and highschool age students should be well informoed on the capability of online, and the steps they should take to promote a good self image.
Mr. Richardson,
Having that chance and risk of being “googlable”, can be openly dangerous. Depending on the information we put online, it can be positive or negative. On myspace and facebook, students put out a open profile of personal information or they share their work on the internet. If colleges do search your work, it can be a good opportunity to show yourself and who you are by the details you show online. It is just a matter of perspective that comes to mind when it comes to good or bad. We all post things online, but being smart about it is essential. We must be careful what we put, where we put, and why we put it. There can be good and unconvincing reasons we post specific knowledge/information on web pages. The thing is, technology has advanced and will advance even more. And the internet certainly is reliable, but we cannot believe everything in our naivve presence, that is put on the internet. The fact is, many things of our own can be accessible.
I have always focused on the negative with my students when warning them about what they post on the Internet. But this brings up some valid points about putting their positive achievements out there so they are available to future employers or schools.