Think Like a Teacher

As one who runs a web site and offers free services to teachers, I am bombarded by offers from social network marketing companies. Everyone wants to make a pitch via social networks. Get people to “like” you on Facebook, pin you on Pinterest, comment about you on blogs, tweet you to the heavens, and generally fill digital space with noise about you. And it does work. Sales come from social networks. Of course, TeachersFirst isn’t selling anything, but we are always trying to get the word out so teachers benefit from timesaving and thought-provoking ideas from our Thinking Teachers®.

When I look for more than a few minutes at the many networks I belong to (conservatively in the hundreds) and even at some comments left on TeachersFirst resources, I see the same pattern. Thinly veiled impostors are creating their own digital fauxprints to hawk the wares of commercial clients. Others simply play the role of something they are not, in order to lure users to new web startups or build the traffic on another site.  How many of the “members” of social networks are actually what they say they are?

I am not talking about cyber stalkers claiming to be teenagers in order to lure our kids into unhealthy relationships. I am talking about self-sculpted digital “experts” and frequent commenters. Spammers are trapped by Akismet and similar tools, but others spend their days creating and maintaining infomercial identities. This would make a fascinating digital (and ethical) exercise for our students (and ourselves as students of the digital world). I’d love to try this challenge with a class or two.

Digital Footprints and Fauxprints

Choose a site where users leave frequent comments. You might choose a popular technology blog, entertainment blog, newspaper site (if open access), food/restaurant review site, Ning or other “community” related to an interest you have, or even a shopping site such as Amazon. Explore some frequent commenters: how many comments have they left? What kind of profile information can you find about them? Can you find the same username on a related or competitor site that also has social features? What evidence can you find that this user might be the same person?  Create a collection of comments by this persona along with the questions they raise for you. You may wonder whether this person has a political agenda, a history of bad experiences, or some other motivation for his/her comments and posts.

Now the big question: Is there any evidence that this persona is, perhaps, a fictitious identity creating a “faux print” to accomplish a certain task? For example, does he/she always send you to see another site that is selling something? Or is he/she trying to generate ad revenue from site traffic (hits)?  Is it possible that this persona is not what he/she pretends to be? Create a digital presentation in support of your fauxprint hypothesis.

Variation: Conduct a class fauxprint scavenger hunt on ONE large site such as Amazon or the Washington Post ( I would have said New York Times, but they charge for access). See how many obvious sales-pitch or agenda-pushing identities you can find during one class period.  What evidence can you show that they may be false identities, hired for a purpose? Award a digital Fauxprint Finder badge to the student with the most, most creative, or most discerning observations.

If you have ever done this or a similar activity, please share it (and a link to any results). I doubt I am the first to wonder about this. I promise to approve REAL comments!