(Blayone, van Oostveen, Barber, DiGiuseppe & Childs, 2016)
Looking at my proposed plan to develop my digital identity in my blog post ‘How will I cultivate and support my digital presence’ and reflecting on Unit 3 readings, I realize that if I want to develop my digital identity with intend I need to consider ‘how the different ways that [I] can connect using cyberspace technologies may contribute to [my] learning trajectories in informal and personal settings’ (Dron & Anderson, 2014, p.73). In my plan I chose LinkedIn, Facebook, my MALAT student Blog, Feedly and Slack as my tools to develop my digital identity. I have since then added Twitter to that tool box. Dron and Anderson (2014, p.88) note
When designing a social system to support learning it is important to bear in mind what kinds of activities and what goals are intended, and to choose approaches and social forms that best serve the needs identified.
My need is to cultivate my social presence and identity, my goal is to engage in formal learning, expand my social capital, find answers and discover networks, create a collective that will support knowledge discovery and the organization of that knowledge (Dron & Anderson, 2014, p.89).
To understand my chosen tools within the context of learning Dron and Anderson (2014) provided me with ‘a typology of the kinds of aggregation that social software can support and of collectives that can emerge from them’ (p.91).
Examining my chosen tools against this typology I understand that I am using my Blog, Facebook, Slack and LinkedIn as my networks to connect with the different groups I belong to; Twitter and Feedly are my sets which I will utilize as ‘a valuable means of gaining diverse insights and knowledge about a subject’ (Dron & Anderson 2014, p.88). To make my sets become more intentional I see my digital presence within a community of interest (Dron & Anderson, 2014, p.80) and to become deliberate in my groups and because I am part of a Fully Online Learning Community I will take ‘ownership of [my] learning and [] contribute to the group. (Blayone, van Oostveen, Barber, DiGiuseppe & Childs, 2016). This will support my formal learning and cultivate my need for bonding, belonging and intentionality.
References
Dron, J, & Andreson, T. (2014). Teaching Crowds. Athabasca University Press.
vanOostveen, R., DiGiuseppe, M., Barber, W., Blayone, T., & Childs, E. (2016). New conceptions for digital technology sandboxes: Developing a Fully Online Learning Communities (FOLC) model. In Proceedings of EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2016(pp. 665-673). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
