Category: LRNT 521

Six weeks later, here on my thoughts on my Digital Presence and Identity Plan.

For most of my adult life, I have been very active in online spaces.  I work for a 3D interactive eLearning company and have spent four-year teaching digital literacy to children as the Chapter Lead of Canada Learning Code.  I am an early and avid adopter of many technologies. I am wired in on so many paths I do not think I could distinguish where my digital self ends and “IRL” self begins.

This fact I live integrated with my digital self does not make me uncomfortable or make me feel inauthentic, and it is just a facet of how I live my life.  As White put it I “see the Web as a place, perhaps like a park or a building in which there are clusters of friends and colleagues whom they can approach and with whom they can share information about their life and work” (White & Le Cornu, 2011).

My digital presence is large if poorly mapped to my google search results, due to having varied interests coupled with an incredibly common name.  If you were to check as Will Richardson suggested and google me on graduation day, Schryver, K. (2013, February 5) the results would garner some pretty generalized posts showing my Digital Citizenship in a mostly positive light.  Before MALAT I already had “a Domain of One’s Own” Watters, A. (2015, July 15) at christinaljones.com.  My search engine optimization (SEO) could use some improvement.  I would like to take some time to strengthen this gap.

The readings for this unit also made me reflect on the evolution of the digital self.  I found some of the readings in Unit 2 were quite dated, as many are nearly a decade old.  Even those articles that are newer had phrases that read like a relic of days gone by.  References to MySpace, Rheingold, H. (2010) and digital camera use, Schryver, K. (2013, February 5) made me reflect on my digital self a decade ago. In 2009, I was a new mom, with little peer or family support.  I turned online to find answers to why my baby would not sleep and ended up stumbling into a community of mothers around the world. This drive to educate myself in parenthood was the first step in me becoming a digital resident.

My digital presence in general, as it is already very much a living thing, like all living things it must be tended.  Additionally, I do plan on curating a branch of my digital presence tied to my education.

Goals for my Digital presence:

• Cultivating content for this blog, and growing interactions with my MALAT cohort peers.
• Create/Find a deeper social connection with my peers. I feel like peer to peer learning is essential, even in digital spaces.
• Adding academic content to my LinkedIn and Twitter
• Increase my SEO

Success will be measured by:

• If my blog becomes a digital artifact I take pride in
• If, in 6 months, we (this cohort) has established a network where we can turn to one another for support.
• If my LinkedIn and Twitter take on a more academic tone
• My SEO results improve.

 

Schryver, K. (2013, February 5). Who are you online? Considering issues of web identity. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/guest-post-who-are-you-online-considering-issues-of-web-identity/?_r=0

Watters, A. (2015, July 15). The Web we need to give students. Bright. Retrieved from https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713

White, D. S., & LeCornu, A. (2011). Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). Retrieved from https://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049

Rheingold, H. (2010). Attention, and other 21st-century social media literacies. Educause Review, 45(5), 14.  Retrieved from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/10/attention-and-other-21stcentury-social-media-literacies

 

Upon beginning this exercise, my intention was to divide work, from education, from personal, however as the plotting exercise began it became evident that there is no clear delineation of those sectors within my online presence.  It also became evident that I tend more toward being a resident than a visitor.

There are certainly times when I am a visitor, entering my shed to “select an appropriate tool which can use[d] to attain [my] goal.”  (White & Le Cornu, 2011).  There are many aspects where I am very much a resident “A proportion of their lives is lived out online where the distinction between online and offline is increasingly blurred.” (White & Le Cornu, 2011).  I have made many long-term friends and mentors through online interaction.  Some of these have greatly benefited my personal and professional lives.

Slack is the tool that is currently impacting my online presence the most, this is why the representation in the graphic above is so large.  Slack is the primary communication tool in my place of business and also where I am part of many social groups.  However, you may note that the graphic skews towards visitor.  The nature of the free platform (used by most social groups) makes much of the content semi-permanent.

 

White, D. (2013, September 13). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK1Iw1XtwQ

White, D., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171

What a week! I spent most of the last seven days out of the country for work, as such I was only able to attend two sessions live which was very unfortunate. Like Carolyn Levy, I “work at a distance but do some on-site visits” (Levy, 2019, 8:40). I was in San Diego meeting with a communication and satellite company about a new blended curriculum. An exciting opportunity which took the majority of my time this week. I felt a kinship with the “apples and oranges” analogy on the profile of traditional student vs online student. (Bates, 2019, 27:30) I think many within the cohort are proof of that juggling work, family and a Masters program. Thankfully, the recorded sessions have provided me with a tremendous resource. I did not expect that binge-watching videos would be part of my Master’s studies, but I am happy for it.

I dug into the MALT student Padlet and got lost for an afternoon. I am thankful to Darin Faber for explaining cognitive load (Faber, 2019, 11:13). Understanding what my brain is going while I try and process all of this information is very helpful.

Many of the sessions resonated with me, and I found Tony Bate’s talk particularly intriguing. The information he shared about HEQCO’s research was, and I would like to read further on this work. (Bates, 2019, 30:27). Also found his example of the web-based tool used to teach scientific argumentation fascinating. (Bates, 2019, 33:08).

My final thoughts on the Virtual symposium is that it has been a whirlwind of information. I imagine these sessions will be revisited time and again over the next few years. I genuinely wish I had been able to be more present during the conversations the week, but still, the recorded sessions have only emphasized my love of video as a learning tool.

Faber, D. (2019, April 15). Design Principles in Digital Learning Resources.
Retrieved from https://youtu.be/daJmgBwDDzc

Bates, Tony (2019, April 15). Rethinking the purpose of Online Learning.
Retrieved from: http://ow.ly/gJlx50qwmbq

Levy, Carolyn (2019, April 15). Designing Learning Environments for a Global Context.
Retrieved from: http://ow.ly/PSyN50qn5QV