What happens when you Google yourself? (Or Bing yourself, or maybe even DuckDuckGo yourself?) You are, of course, searching for yourself on the world wide web. At one time this may have been dismissed as the vanity of egosurfing, but these days, being aware of and managing your web presence is an important element of developing personal and professional identity. You can pretty much take it for granted that if someone wants to know about your professional activity, or if you apply for a job or a grant or admission to a program or school, the first thing that folks will do is search your name on the web. What will they find among those first few hits? Will the top spot be occupied by your profile on RateMyProfessors.com?
If you’d like to learn more about managing your identity, network, and reputation on the web, join us for “Search Yourself: Managing Your Web Identity as a Professional Academic.” This will be a lunchtime bring-your-tray presentation and discussion on Wednesday, February 18, in room 231 of the Wright Campus Center. DP@AC will pick up the tab for your lunch that day, so what do you have to lose? We’ll meet from about 11:30 to 1:00, so drop in whenever you can.
We’ll be picking up on some ideas presented in a recent article in the Chronicle, “How to Curate Your Digital Identity as an Academic,” so you might want to give that a look ahead of time. We’ll discuss options for setting up a website, the relevance of blogging and tweeting as an academic professional, networking and social media, and whatever else you’d like to talk about.
And what does this have to do with pedagogy? Lots, actually. As our students participate in their academic fields, apply for jobs and graduate schools, and develop their careers, they’ll need modeling and guidance in establishing their own professional online identities. Having a well-crafted e-portfolio of their work, for example, will help students showcase their strengths. And the web skills and digital literacy that they pick up along the way will enhance their prospects for career success. So join us next Wednesday!
