Digital Citizen | Defining ourselves: What is my (digital) identity? | 6-8, 9-10, 11-12

Student Objective

Instructions

Step 1: Unpacking identity via a Graphic organizer

First, students can complete a “Who I Am” graphic organizer to support them in brainstorming and articulating their identity. Teachers can customize the Concept Web Generator for the “Who I Am” organizer by changing the “topic of concept” so it directs students to look at their current digital identity.

Step 2: What is your digital identity, right now?

Next, they can then assess aspects of their digital identity by searching for themselves online, reviewing their social media feeds, and looking back on reviews they posted online along with other aspects of their identity. Students can use SearchAll for searching the internet by entering their name, nicknames, affiliations, and other groups that they may belong to that have been referenced online. This search will help students establish a baseline of their current digital identity.

Step 3: Determine how you want to be portrayed online

Based on that assessment, students can identify specific actions they can take to further cultivate their digital identity based on they wish to represent themselves online. Students can repurpose the PersonaGenerator tool to shift its focus to themselves and communicate how they would like their digital identity to be perceived.

Step 4: Write a brief essay about key learnings

To conclude, students can compose their essay and share it on a class websites, so other members in their learning community can view it. Students can create a document using Google Docs and then compose their essay using that edtech. Once they’ve written their essay they can input their writing in Grammarly to obtain feedback on their writing.

In addition, teachers can collect these essays over time and share them with their future students. In this way, the essay itself becomes part of the student’s digital identity.

Justification

This instructional idea has students first explore their current digital identity to increase their awareness about the permanence of their actions. Next, students go through a process to consider how they would like their digital identity to represent themselves and draft an essay that explains not only the actions they can take to achieve that representation, but also background about the current status of their identity and a plan for improving or maintaining it.

EdTech used in this activity:

Alternative Ed Tech you could use:

Teachnology’s Graphic Organizers, Search All, Persona Generator by Mobility Labs, Grammarly, Google Docs