“Footprints in the Digital Age” By Will Richardson

            In the article “Footprints in the Digital Age” by Will Richardson it really describes how we as students need to think about how we are using the internet to better our learning whenever we are using it. It really makes you think about how the students in today’s world need to use the technology they have to better their learning and to extend the knowledge they have about the things they are passionate about in their day to day lives.

            In the article Richardson describes this process as “being Googled well.” What he means by this is when people find the things we post about, blog about, etc. we want them to connect with what we are sharing while they read and also connect with us personally to share the knowledge from person to person about whatever the subject may be. By doing this we can extend our knowledge on whatever subject we wish, but we just have to grasp how this is to be done in the right way.

Richardson also wants us to think about how “The things we create are searchable to an extent never before imagined and will be viewed by all sorts of audiences, both intended and unintended.” The most important part of this to me was that people that we don’t intend to see the things we post on the internet are going to whether we like it or not. Plus if we didn’t want to risk someone outside of the intended audience to view what is it we are posting about we shouldn’t be posting it to start with. The reason for my belief of how important this is to students of our age group is because of the things we post on our social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. We don’t really give a second thought to all the things we say on those sites because we don’t even take into consideration who will end up seeing that, whether by mistake or not. I really could connect to this on a deeper level because I know how dangerous the internet can be if not used in the right way and that if I personally am not careful about the things I say and do they really could haunt me for the rest of my life. And I’m careful when posting because I know that even if I delete something, it will never truly be off the internet. That is not how I want to be Googled. I want to be Googled for things that hopefully people with the same interest or passion will be able to connect with. Then I want them to be able to use the internet to connect with me and share knowledge to take my learning network to the next level. I don’t want to ruin the reputation I get on the internet before it is even really there. That’s why I’m going to make the smart decisions about what I post so that I can to be on my way to being Googled well.