Positive Online Profile – POP

I’m starting something new with my students this semester.   I’m calling it “POP” or Positive Online Profile.

Each student starts by making sure he/she does not have pictures or posts on the web that show conduct unbecoming of a teacher.  If possible, those items are purged.  With all the archiving out there, someone really looking for dirt may still find it, but it should be out of the popular search engines.

Then we build up all the things that are positive. 

1 – Blog about educational topics
2 – Flickr photos of educational projects
3 – YouTube videos of lessons taught
4 – Online digital portfolio

All these things will have the students’ real names.  The idea is to get positive educational information at the top of all the search engines.  The only way to do this is to create a lot of positive information.  To move this information to the top of the search engines, other people need to link to it.  This is the hardest, most drawn out part of the project.  It may take years to get close to the top of the search engines. 

The students will participate in larger educational social networks.  Any time they work on group projects, they will link to each other.  They will also work with faculty members to establish those links.  In four years, as the students graduate, we hope potential employers will not only find our students’ positive information online, but they will also see how the students fit into the educational community.