Rights and Norms in the Digital World

I believe that students need to be taught how to protect themselves in the digital world by learning about digital tattoos or carbon tracks that are left anytime that they post things.  Many colleges, employers, etc. go to an applicants social media pages (facebook, twitter, instagram, etc.) to see what they have posted.  Items that can cause problems are cyber-bullying, vulgar language, threats,  talking about partying, etc.  Students need to be made aware that whatever they post is on there forever, even if they go back and edit it.  They need to be taught how to protect their identity on social media, too.  That includes creating secure passwords, protecting their address, phone numbers and location, and sharing too much personal information.  I work at a prison, and a lot of my students state that they look for postings about being on vacation, etc. that indicates that a person is not home and then that person becomes a target for theft, etc.

Of course, not only do students need to learn about safety precautions, but they also need to be made aware of how to responsibly utilize online information.  They need to be taught how to tell if a site is from a reputable source, etc.  For instance, if I'm doing a report on cancer I would want to cite The Mayo Clinic, or The American Cancer Society, not Wikipedia or yahoo answers.  They also need to be taught how to correctly cite their sources, versus plagiarism.  

Utilizing online resources provides many resources that are valuable, but it also provides many dangers.  Students, and ourselves, need to learn how to protect ourselves.