In class we were handed a fun assignment to do over the weekend, the task was to stalk my DCI 180 professors Mary Abdoney and Elizabeth Teaff. At first, I wasn’t sure where to start so I headed straight to Facebook and searched Mary Abdoney. At first, her profile wasn’t evident to me as her picture was that of a snake-shaped uterus with the iconic phrase “Don’t tread on me” underneath and not of her face. I started to scroll down her profile and started to find all kinds of information on her. I found out that she was born in Tampa, Florida on June 16th, 1976, and attended high school at H.B Plant in Tampa. After graduating from high school, she started college soon after and attended school at the University of Florida in 1993 and graduated in 1999. Afterward, she went on to pursue grad school at the University of South Florida graduating in 2001 getting a degree in Library and Information Science. She now uses the degree to be a librarian at WLU and also teaches DCI 180. There other items that I came across I scrolled through her Facebook. I discovered how her house looked and that she wore green shoes on her wedding day. I also came across her very photogenic son. After taking one last look at her Facebook, I decided to venture onto other social media platforms that she used. It didn’t take long to find them as she had them linked it all on the side of her Facebook page. As I scrolled through her twitter feed, I found out that she is was very much in favor of the first-ever female Doctor on Doctor Who. She is also big into Digital Pedagogy, which is the study and use of contemporary digital technology in teaching and learning. I noticed this as almost every tweet was tagged with #DigPed. Which after a couple of seconds of research, I was able to figure out what it meant. I also found out how passionate she was about being a librarian, as many tweets were either librarian memes or topics concerning librarians in America. Also, her Twitter shows her political side as well as she is feminist and advocates for empowering women. This is also evident in her blog website, http://maryabdoney.wludci.info/. Her about page talks strongly about how it is to be a working mother and her journey through life. Afterward, I went onto her Instagram and noticed two things immediately, her love for flowers and her appreciation for her growing jack-o-lantern that will hopefully be beautifully carved this coming October. Soon after leaving her Instagram I came upon another page about Professor Abdoney. I found a website that was made for her wedding. It listed many facts about her and her husband, Ned Norland. One of those facts was that her wedding, which took place September 29th, 2012, was located at Castle House in Lexington, Virginia. Another fact was that Professor Abdoney was a sorority member during her time at UF and was a member of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority. Lastly, she drove from WLU to Chapel Hill every other weekend just to see her husband. From the hobbies she posted about on her Instagram to her love of being a librarian, Professor Abdoney certainly has an interesting digital footprint.
Professor Teaff was also very interesting to stalk. She did not have hardly any post on any of her social media except Instagram, but I was still able to find information on her. She was born in Gloversville, New York on June 16th, 1974 and went to Gloversville High School. After graduating she attended Fulton-Montgomery Community College to study studio art. Afterward, she studied at the State University of New York at Potsdam then went on to study art history at Virginia Commonwealth University finally ending her college days at the University of South Carolina earning a degree in Library & Information Science. She started working at Virginia Military Institute and then left that job to work at Rockbridge Regional Library finally leaving that job to pursue her current career at WLU as a University Library Access Services Manager. She enjoys shopping at 3 Seasons Antiques & Unique Treasures. Leaving a five-star review which stated, “One of my favorite places in Rockbridge County. I always find vintage things for my home.” As I went further down the Internet rabbit hole, I started to find some interesting things about Professor Teaff. She loves spiders and even has a fantastic picture of a spider on Instagram with one commenter stating, “Ugh, no way!” She is also a big buckeyes fan as seen from her sports tab underneath her Facebook page. She also enjoys flowers and cats as seen on her Instagram page. Although I could not find much information on Professor Teaff, it was very fun to stalk her digital footprint and see where it was going to take me.
Stalking someone online has never been easier. Through the use of social media and other websites, there is virtually information about everyone out there, even information on myself. All I had to do was look up my name and city and I instantly found pictures of myself in high school and even in elementary school. All these photos were out there without me even knowing they existed. There was a way for me to know about them, however. As we discussed in DCI 180, I could set up a Google Alert on my phone to notify myself about these photos when they were posted as long as they referenced my name, but many people such like myself did not know about this feature. Also, I became aware of the impact of having a digital footprint. Although both professors were in good shape online, imagine someone who put everything out on the web. All that information would stay online for anyone to look at forever. I see the importance of having a clean digital footprint. This project opened my eyes into seeing what can be found out about someone with a few simple searches.
