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Tracking the Trackers

Google Chrome is my usual go-to internet browser. I was not able to find information on how long Google keeps cookies from third parties. However, there are ways to change the settings so that cookies from certain sets are blocked or to have Google automatically delete all cookies by default when you close your browser.

The usual websites that I visit (school district email, Facebook, Gmail, Whatsapp Web) did not have many trackers, most had less than 10 connected sites. I was surprised to see that the TWU student portal website had 10 connected websites.  When I visited retail sites such as Gap Online or BabiesRUs Online, I noticed a huge jump in the number of connected sites. Gap Online had 27 connected sites and BabiesRUs had over 60 connected sites! In total, I visited 17 websites and had connected with 190 third party sites.

While I realize the importance of protecting my privacy online, I am not too concerned about cookies and trackers. I did clear the cookies in Google in the process of doing this assignment but to be honest, I often enjoy the ads that pop up in my Facebook or Instagram.

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My Digital Footprint

Ruth Leong, also known by her maiden name as Ruth Cheng, is a high school math teacher who is currently teaching in the Coquitlam School District. In the past, she has taught in the Surrey and North Vancouver school districts. Before entering the teaching profession, Ruth worked as a statistical analyst at the British Columbia Dental Association.

Ruth graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics major) in 2012 and a Bachelor of Education (Secondary Education Concentration) in 2013. Ruth is also fluent in Chinese.

 

Ruth is active on her Instagram account where she documents many of the events in her life. She mostly posts about her outings with her friends and her travels with her husband, Haymen.

 

 

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Being a high school teacher, I have come to be very aware of what I share and what is shared about me on the internet. In fact, there have been many times when I have purposely gone through and removed content online that I do not want others (mainly my students!) to see. An example of this was the website I created for my wedding a few years ago. While there was nothing inappropriate on it, it felt private and I did not want the information to be available online after the occasion had passed.

From my search, the only sneak-peek that was available into my personal life was the picture (seen above) from my Instagram page. Of course, it also lists my Instagram account name, which leads to more pictures from my day-to-day life. My Instagram account used to be private to the public. However, I recently consciously changed it because sometimes I like to share my posts with friends and family who do not have an Instagram account. When I was a new teacher, it was really important for me to keep my personal life private. However, as I become more comfortable in my profession, I realize that even if students stumble across my page, it would perhaps make me more personable and human.

I like to describe myself as candid and friendly. As such, I try to portray this through my posts on Facebook and Instagram. While my Facebook page is quite hidden and cannot be found through a simple search online, I believe that my Instagram account does show this if one really does spend the time looking through all the posts! Having said this, I am always mentally self-censoring, making sure that things that I post are not at risk of being taken the wrong way or out of context. I am always making sure that any posts I like align with my values and beliefs. Sometimes it’s easy to “like” a post on Facebook or Instagram because it is posted by a good friend. However, I understand that everything I do online can be seen by others and I want to make sure that it only adds positively to my online presence.

– Ruth

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Site Structure

My main goal when planning and building this preliminary structure for my site was to keep it fairly simple and easy to read. For this reason, I chose the simplest theme available. However, I found that the default aesthetics of the site were not pleasing to me. For example, I found the spacing of the font in the body of the posts to be too far apart. So, I changed this by using the customization options for the theme. I was mostly able to change all the spacing and sizing issues I had with the look of the site.

While I appreciate how easy ready-made themes make site building, I also find it slightly restrictive as there are some things that you cannot customize. For example, I wanted to list my categories as a sidebar menu on my site. However, this theme only allows users to place menus in the main navigation location at the top of the page under the header. Given more time, I would like to learn to build my own site from coding so that I could customize my page to exactly what I would like.

Right now, the main thing that I am struggling with is trying to figure out how to register my site so that my posts can be syndicated to the Course Hub. I have already followed the instructions given but I can’t seem to find my posts on the Course Hub page.

– Ruth

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