When the PR hat is worn backwards, the ET is focusing on student PR instead of school PR. For the most part, when talking about PR with students, we're really talking about teaching kids to be aware of their digital footprint. A lot of students don't realize that what they put on the internet stays out there for good and, depending what it is, can affect their future education and employment opportunities.
When it comes to talking about your digital footprint, there has been lots of talk about how "Google-able" you are (see one example from Will Richardson). I'm not sure how authentic a Google search is to assess someone's character or personality, but the reality is that many companies, schools, scholarship committees, employers, etc. have started to check people out on Google. As such, ETs need to help students understand how what they put on the internet can affect their future and then teach them how to manage what they put online to ensure they are proud of the digital parts of themselves. In most cases, digital footprint discussions with students are going to revolve heavily around smart social networking.
I got a few really great ideas from this blog about some "recap apps" that help students get a glimpse of the kind of personality they are projecting on sites like Facebook or Twitter. The author of the blog, Lisa Neilsen, suggests trying things like status clouds or creating a year in pictures. This quick glimpse of the whole allows students to see the general image they are presenting of themselves. I really liked this idea because you are able to teach about the pitfalls of these sites by using them. (See my previous rant on the ridiculousness of locking kids out of sites to "keep them safe".) This site also stresses the importance (yet again!) of the teacher as a digital model. Before we try helping kids get their digital footprints under wraps, we better make sure we've got our own under control. You're also not in a great position to be preaching the importance of what is being shared on social networks if you've got pictures of you wearing a beer helmet riding a hobby horse at a rodeo plastered all over your Facebook. You know what they say about the pot and the kettle....
It is also a good idea to encourage your students to do a quick reflection on things they want to post before they actually post them. Have students ask themselves, "If I post this and _________ see(s) it, will I be proud to have it posted?" Have them try putting the following people in that blank: my friends, my parents, my grandparents, and my teacher. This strategy is especially handy when dealing with gossip/cyber bullying posts as well as with party pictures at the high school level.
In my search for information on digital footprints, I encountered a couple websites that offer a plethora of resources for kids, parents, and teachers on the subject. For example, mydigitalfootprintSD offers lesson plans for teachers including a digital footprint handbook assignment that explores all sorts of topics like online ethics, legal responsibility, market safety, and appropriate online conduct. It also has a section devoted to elementary students that is presented through video (cheesy as they may be) instead of text. A lot of the information on the site is written from the perspective of a middle years' student, so the language has some definite appeal to that audience. KidSMART offers a lot of similar content but has a much flashier presentation and includes games and online activities for students to participate in. This site also covers a much wider range of topics relating to online smarts. I also love this site because there is a "Skills School" link that provides kids access to a video tutorial on Facebook privacy settings (HOORAY!) and under the "I work with kids" tab there is an entire video series aimed at the elementary group. The series, called Know IT All, is animated and should keep younger audiences engaged.
As you can probably tell from my verbosity on this topic, student PR is a reasonably complicate hat to wear. There are almost no limits to what could be covered while trying to teach kids about their digital footprint. That being said, I think the most critical aspect of this topic is simply the awareness that what you do online can have far reaching consequences. Our students (generally) have good common sense and once they are made aware of the possible consequences of their actions, they will probably take some form of action even without our assistance.
Here's one more link to a blog entry that focuses on social media in the classroom. Written from a teacher's perspective, it puts some of the fears we all have about how using social media in the classroom might affect the digital footprints of our students and possibly ourselves.
This is one of those things that expands the traditional perception of the role played by educational technologists. It's important that we take a direct role in doing this kind of teaching with students and teaching staff. There might also be a good opportunity to collaborate with teacher-librarians on this work.
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