Have you thought about the digital dossier you are creating for your children and helping your students develop? Are your students aware of the digital footprints they are leaving behind? If you’re interested in the current size of your digital footprint or would like your students to think about their digital usage, download a copy of the EMC Personal Digital Footprint Calculator. This tool walks you through questions that calculate your digital impact based on responses to questions about your computer usage, email usage, digital camera/camcorder usage, web downloading habits, potential surveillance areas, and geographical information, among other things. The questions do make you think about your online activities, but they may be hard to answer if you’re not really aware of your online activities or good at coming up with averages. I also thought my results were skewed because the questionnaire/calculator did not ask about content generated via blogs, personal websites, etc. Still, I do think the calculator could be used as an awareness activity to help students think about the personal footprints and shadows they are creating. The following video created by Kanupriya Tewari, suggests a digital time line of one person’s lifespan:

Click on the image below to access an online activity that features an interactive scenario designed to help you (and your students) think about your (their) daily footprint:

And finally….here is another thought-provoking short video posted by boveriec on YouTube: