I’ve signed up for (and started) another
Coursera course. Digital Footprint…"the data you leave behind when
you go online”.
So what does this have to do with CPD?
The CPD rules say that we have to do
CPD, but how we record it is up to the individual.
Back in the day when I first started
recording my CPD in the form of a blog, the management where I used to work was
unanimous in their disdain of it.
Possibly because I wasn’t using the
templates that they’d spent months arguing about.
Possibly because it was an idea I’d had,
and I was never flavour of the month with them.
Possibly fear of the Internet… as one of
them once told me “You never know who’s reading what you write”.
Which is why I am rather cautious about
exactly what it is that I write on here. But for all that the title up above
says “anonymous biomedical scientist who works somewhere in the south of
England” it wouldn’t take anyone with any IT skills more than a couple of
minutes to work out who I am and where I work, would it?
As someone who has been all over the Internet
pretty much since it started my digital footprint is quite immense. Have you
ever Googled yourself? I have. If you peer into the Internet there’s photos of
me holding snakes, looking through telescopes, drinking far too much, in Star
Trek costumes, in a mankini, with cub scouts, flying kites, fishing, walking
through the countryside, with dogs, geocaching, and even occasionally
performing a blood test…
That’s the kind of guy I am.
But I know that whenever I post anything
to the Internet it is there for keeps.
That’s why this diary is incredibly
dull, and my personal diary (see the “other biomedical blogs of note”
section) is far more of a hagiography (look it up!) than a
biography.
It would seem that quite a few people
are ashamed of who they used to be and are frightened about what they might be
perceived to be…
Like all Coursera courses, this one is
rather interesting. It’s reminded me to be circumspect in what I post on here,
and I’m hoping to learn one or two new things.
I’ve passed the first module, so here’s
hoping.
