I googled myself and not a lot comes up. Is this a good thing? Or should I be questioning my own place in the world? Do I even exist at all?
I tried a number of my different "handles" and I was hard pressed to find anything, other then a link to my old myspace account; other information includes addresses that go back to when I was a kid, and two links to pdf files from 2003. Both are benign and I am having difficulty locating them again. When I googled my name, what came up was a story about a women with my name burned as a witch.
Even that is just a reference from a book. The things that mention me when I searched for myself are in reference to my large family. We stay in touch mostly on Facebook. I sensor what is available about me because I don't want my family to know all of my business or be embarrassed by anything I do.
I believe not just teachers should be accountable for what information is available about them online but as adults this is our responsibility to children. Interestingly, I have used the social networking sites to research my adolescent clients. Part of our program when I was a wilderness guide was for parents to research their kids on the web. We taught them how to find information about their kids. It is strange how my clients parents were so shocked about what their kids had put online; I was shocked that the parents were so out of touch with the behaviors of their children.
The things I can do to protect myself is to stay informed as new and different social media sites come into fashion. I will never be able to control all the information available about me online, but I can look from time to time to be aware of what students, parents, and employers might find.
I had similar results, my google search did not bring much of anything other then a guy who shares my name in Fort Myers, Florida. My hope is that no one ever confuses the two of us; violence and dope are two things a teacher should probably not be associated with. I think the fact that nothing really surfaced for you is a good thing, I feel like the internet offers a forum in which people speak before they think, often resulting in alot of problems. It is good to have privacy in your life and there is no reason everyone should know all about people they have never met. This curbs the pre-judgment people sometimes develope.
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