Gardner Campbell’s article and video is helping us, the students and anyone else, understand the  value of connecting with others online. Being connected is rather important in the Digital Age because we as consumers help with the evolution of technology. Before we connect to others, we should follow Campbell’s practices. I personally believe that curating is the big one everyone should be worried about. If you don’t have protection on you work or your private information before sharing or narrating, then you could be at risk. You could have said work stolen or even worse, info about where you live released. It should be everyone’s top priority to protect their online identity.

In the video, Campbell  mentioned the levels of Openness and they all revolve around the practice of sharing. However, you don’t want to be too open with world or with each other, but you should still share with others online in order to build your own cyberinfrastructures. You just have to take precautions, so you won’t get “swatted” or “doxxed”. For example, I have created my online identity in a way that I can still be myself and be proactive with the online community without having myself or my family at risk.

In both his video and article, Campbell talks about how colleges and schools help students build their identity and infrastructure online. I believe Digital Storytelling is one of the many courses here at the University of Mary Washington that assists us in building a student’s online identity. Evidence is shown in the first and second week of the class. We were given the task to set up our own domain name, create personal avatars to communicate with, and even set up a security plugin on our sites to help protect us. After everything is set up and ready to go, we begin to tell various stories through daily assignments that we show to the public via blogging and Twitter.

After you confirm that you are protected (curated), you can then begin to narrate and share your works with others online, just like this class. The process of making sure you are protected isn’t difficult at all and it should always be applied where it can be. Like I stated before, safety should be the first thing you think about before posting online.