Seeing Footprints in a New Way

I always thought of digital footprints as being more harmful than helpful. Now - thanks to Silvia Tolisano - I think I'm changing my mind. After Silvia talked about students using their digital footprints as a way to showcase themselves and how powerful that could be - I started to see them in a new way. Now I'm thinking that they could be more of an asset than a liability. I feel that if schools and educators are going to encourage or require students to use social networks and blogs for educational purposes then they have an obligation to teach the students the right way to do so. As I have stated before I think schools are asked to do way too much already but in this case I think the schools need to take this on. I think we have a responsibility to make sure that students know what their digital footprint is and the impact that it can have on them in both the short and long term. Now "When?", "Where?", and "How?" I guess whenever, wherever, and however we can. I can't be more specific at this point because I really don't know what it means to teach students about their digital footprint. (I guess that's one reason why I'm taking part in the Educational Technology and Information Literacy courses.) But I do know that we need to make sure that students' digital footprints are taking them down the right road and not the wrong one.