On Youth Advisory website

With our continuing discussions about Digital Identities,@ChezVivian has written a wonderful blog post (Perfecting My Footprint in Life) exhorting us toward being authentic people online – full of character and integrity – as an extension of who we are in our daily lives. Do we spend our days trying to impress people? If so, then we will probably get caught up in “Digitally Branding” ourselves, putting ourselves out there as a commodity – selling ourselves. Instead, if our core values include servanthood – mentoring, teaching, coming alongside others, etc., it will reveal itself in selfless acts that demonstrate our character. If our online self is congruent with our offline self, then people will see that and that presence will connect us to people in a natural way. In working with students, certainly we want to point out that what they do and say online is a reflection of who they are. Being good citizens online should be congruent with who they are as citizens in all the other areas of their lives. Perhaps we should take her advice:

“It seems it would be ideal if we could show our students the power they have to exact and affect remarkable help, care, and education through the Internet; such that they would find the risky & riské activities boring and unappealing in comparison.”

Perhaps that is a good reason our collaborative activities focus on supporting others as members of a community. If only that became fashionable. Perhaps I’ll write more about this….