Presentation at IATEFL Manchester, April 2015

1. Managing Teacher DIGITAL IDENTITY
Sharing, Oversharing & Undersharing
Sophia Mavridi
49th Annual International IATEFL Conference and Exhibition
Manchester 2015

2. DIGITAL IDENTITY
The ego itself and how one’s self is represented and managed online
(James et al, 2009: 20)

3. Digital Identity is the sum of
all digitally available information
about an individual, irrespective
of its degree of validity, its form
or its accessibility.
It comprises everything that can be
found about us; from the content we
create or share to what other people
post about us.
It is becoming increasingly traceable,
due to the rapid growth of available
data and the big data capacities to
process it.
(Williams, 2010; Rose et al, 2012)
Photo by Joe Hunt https://flic.kr/p/pfr2Tp

4. Partial Identities are subsets of a complete digital
identity. Each represents the person in a specific online space or
role
i.e. attributes and properties may or may not be similar from
space to space or from role to role (Internet Society, 2013)

5. Who are you
online?

6. Part of my Digital Identity

7. What others say about me

8. What can be inferred about me

9. On the Internet,
nobody knows
you are a dog
but they know
you buy dog food

11. • Persistence
• Visibility
• Spreadability
• Searchability
(boyd, 2014)
Photo by Mike D. https://flic.kr/p/7wivTU

12. Participatory Cultures
(James et al, 2009)

13. Self-expression
“Online spaces offer individuals an opportunity to have a voice,
an opportunity that may be rarer offline”(Stern, 2007)
Photo by Mustafa Khayat https://flic.kr/p/a81zQM

15. Feedback

16. ‘Without any principle of coherence, the self spins in all directions.
Multiplicity is not viable if it means shifting
among personalities that cannot communicate’
(Turkle, 1995: 58)
FRAGMENTED IDENTITES

17. The PERFORMATIVE element
“Forming digital identities with an eye toward attracting or
entertaining a digital audience, may undermine the degree to
which an individual can engage in self-reflection (James et al, 2009)

18. People’s need to continuously signal their current locations, activities and
moods may set the stage for an overreliance on feedback, which can
undercut autonomy and create fragmented identities; they may also
develop a strong desire for positive feedback and praise from others which
may interfere with an individual’s capacity for reflecting in an abstract.
(James et al, 2009)
Tethering
• Connecting one device to another
• The nearly constant sharing of information and connectivity to others online

19. Digital Identity as the currency
of the digital market
It can be used for good purposes but it can also ‘be
unscrupulously traded and abused’ (Saxby, 2011)

21. • When does sharing become oversharing?
• How might this affect your credibility or authority as an
educator and professional?
• Do you tend to share less for fear of exposure?
• What does it say about someone if they have
limited digital presence in a digital age?

22. PROFESSIONAL or
PERSONAL
Digital Identities?

23. The lines between professional and personal social media use
are increasingly blurred

24. ‘The social web is still very young, and
society is still adjusting to the new-
found ability to share thoughts,
feelings and anecdotes with a global
audience. The real problem for those
of us who seek to make the most of
the opportunities offered by the
social media revolution is to try and
judge what the mood will be like in
the future’.
(Williams, 2010: 7)

25. BUILD UP YOUR digital
IDENTITY
Personal Brand
Online Portfolio
Knowledge Communities
Effective role-modeling as teachers

27. Consider everything you do online
as PUBLIC

29. Don’t get too personal
X Date of birth
X Home location
X Inappropriate pictures
Revealing pictures
Embarrassing drunken photos
X Relationship statuses
especially when unstable
X Political/ Religious beliefs
X Too many selfies

30. A cartoon about selfies

31. The concept of identity is an issue of much greater complexity than it was in the
days of the offline world. It has never been more important to examine and
protect the concept of "who we are". We are at the beginning of a new discipline
of Web Science in which such issues need to be researched across disciplines.
Professor Stephen Saxby - University of Southampton, 2011

32. Sophia Mavridi
Email sophia.mavridi@yahoo.co.uk
Blog sophiamavridi.edublogs.org
Twitter @SophiaMav