🎯 Learning Objectives
Develop the Information Technology learning strand:
- Define online reputation and discuss what it consists of
- Learn techniques for how to build a positive reputation
- Learn the ways in which one’s online reputation might be under threat and how to defend it
💬 Key Vocabulary
- Anonymous
- attacker
- digital footprint
- online reputation
- privacy settings
💭 Starter Activity
Which of the following contribute to your online reputation?
📖 Online Reputation is defined as:
“the reputation of a person, company, or product created by the content they produce and way they behave online”
This is also known as your digital footprint.
Your online reputation is formed of all of your online activity that is seen by others and the online content made about you by others. This can include activity you intended to be private.
📝 Activity 2 – Building Reputation
Step 1
Get into groups of three.
How would you describe the online reputation of the following types of people?
In your groups, use the reputation adjectives and activities below to build a reputation for each type of person.
| Private | Professional | High quality | Creative | Informative |
| Funny | Unique | Reliable | Active | Topical |
| Easy to find | Hidden | Popular | Relatable | Small scale |
| Consistent | Polite | Friendly | Curated | Role model |
Step 2
Assign each person in your group the letter A, B, or C.
Describe the timeline of character A, B, or C’s online reputation.
At each stage of their life, decide if their online reputation is good or bad.
Download your character’s worksheet below.
Here’s an example timeline
Character D is a politician. They use Twitter and Instagram to update their constituents about their work. Both social media accounts are run by an aide who works for Character D, but who was fired. The aide uses Character D’s Twitter account to post rude tweets about Character D’s colleagues.
Reputation Evaluation
Share your answers with the rest of the group.
- Whose online reputation was the worst?
- Were there any common mistakes made by each of your characters?
- How would you improve the online reputation of your character?
📝 Activity 3 – Reputation Attack
Download the worksheet below and match the different attackers to the types of attack they can carry out on someone’s online reputation. You can copy and paste the sentences into the correct cells in the table.
- What is each attacker’s motivation?
- What are the results of each type of attack?
Reputation Defence
How would you defend your online reputation?
Do you think you can protect yourself from any of the online reputation attacks?
How might the following activities help protect your online reputation?
- Keep a log of online accounts
- Google yourself regularly
- Delete old accounts and content that is no longer relevant to you
- Use appropriate privacy settings
- Only connect, or friend, with people you know and trust
- Consider how the content you post might be interpreted by people in your life, and only post content you would feel comfortable with them finding out about
- Regularly clear your browsing history and your cookies
- Use privacy-enhancing tools to reduce the data collected on the websites you visit
- Don’t share your passwords or give others access to your online accounts
- Avoid using emails and messaging services for private conversations
- Know your rights to have content taken down or blocked, and exercise them
In this lesson, you…
- Consider your online reputation, how it might be threatened, and how to protect it
Next lesson, you will…
- Learn about data misuse and the phenomenon of fake news.
🏅 Badge it
🥈 Silver Badge
- Complete the Activity 2 – Adjectives Worksheet and upload the Word document to www.bournetolearn.com.
🥇 Gold Badge
- Complete the Activity 2 – Character A, B or C worksheet and upload the Word document to www.bournetolearn.com.
🥉 Platinum Badge
- Complete the Activity 3 – Reputation Attacks worksheet and upload the Word document to www.bournetolearn.com.