Very little remains private in the digital age. Social media
present us all with questions about privacy and safe practices
online. In our New Media Literacies curriculum for ESL
instructors we address the implications of the new media
landscape as it impacts students’ lives, looking at what is
known about them through their online social media presence as
well as what students can know to be true, important or trivial
as they wade through the constant stream of information. In our
first lesson What Does the Public Know About You? --Does it
Matter?, one of the questions we ask is: what are the risks of
creating an online social presence? To explore this we suggest
students work in pairs to conduct an online search of each other
(or their instructor) assuming the role of an employer – a
social networking company that wants to hire someone who is
passionate about social networking. Reviewing examples of what
they find – that they are willing to share! – we discuss their
overall impression of their partner’s web