Making Curriculum Pop

I know a great article from the NY Daily News is a bit of an oxymoron, but this is a very teachable text for the middle school/high school set who are learning the ropes of social networking and online culture. Frank Baker e-mailed it to me...

Hey kids, Facebook is forever
BY CHRISTINE ROBERTS
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Tuesday, July 14th 2009, 4:04 PM

You walk into the manager’s office, resume tightly gripped in your left hand. You sit down, survive the awkward introduction and even nail the unanswerable “What is your greatest weakness?” question.
Confident, you relax and think to yourself, “Finally, an employer seems interested.” But while you rattle off your list of accomplishments, the manager isn’t really listening. Instead, he is clicking through pictures of the house party you went to last week and — yikes — pictures of you from four years ago, at your after-prom party.

These pictures weren’t exactly CEO-material. But how could you expect that pictures that were from — what seems like — eras ago would be back to haunt you? In fact, you are in good company. Take the newly appointed head of MI6, Sir John Walters, for example. When Facebook photos of him in a swimsuit appeared online last week, people in Britain began to question his credentials as the leader of the Secret Intelligence Service.

While your first job interview may not be as crucial as the safety of an entire country, Walters’s example proves a point. As social networking sites seem to grow by the second, so does your Internet footprint. And though you may delete pictures and comments from your Facebook, the trail you leave will stay there forever.
“You want to be careful with any information that you are sharing online, said Jennifer Grasz, CareerBuilder.com’s media correspondent. “The shelf life of the information may be longer than expected.”

In the second quarter of 2008, CareerBuilder asked 2,500 hiring managers whether they look to Facebook or other social networking Web sites to find more information about prospective employees; 22% of managers said yes. In the second quarter of 2009, that percentage rose to 38%.

The year-to-year increase reflects the growing popularity — and growing risk — of social networking sites. But while evidence suggests that closing your Facebook page forever is the best possible solution, Grasz said that the Internet can sometimes be used to your benefit. “

Twenty-four percent of hiring managers, every one out of four surveyed, said they found content that helped them to solidify their decision to hire a candidate,” Grasz said. “On the other side, 34% said they found content to dismiss the candidate.”

Even before you reach your first job interview, what you post on the Internet can affect you. According to a study released by Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions last year, one in 10 colleges and universities surveyed admitted to visiting prospective students’ social networking pages when making an admissions decision.
“Our advice to students is to be prudent and discrete,” said Jeff Olson, Kaplan’s Director of Research. “When you are communicating on the public Internet, there is a digital record that will not go away.”

So, what should you do?

Don’t abolish your Facebook page into the abyss of the World Wide Web. Rather, use it to your advantage. Fill it with information that does justice to what you have accomplished.
Also, carefully monitor your comments, the groups you join and your privacy settings.
“You want to make sure that the information you are sharing is going to put you in a positive light,” Grasz said.

So the next time you are deciding whether to impress your friends with crazy photos from Friday night, carefully consider who else might stumble upon them.

Read full article here

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