Activity 2 | PART A of Assignment 1: Create, Cultivate, and Reflect on your Digital Presence

As part of our LRNT521- Digital Learning Environments, Networks, Communities course, I have developed a plan to cultivate my digital presence and identity. I am most interested in developing my professional presence online, leaning more on the resident (versus visitor) end of White and Le Cornu’s (2011) Visitor and Residents typology for online engagement.

My primary goal and purpose for cultivating my digital presence and identity is to grow as an educator in today’s digital era. My overall goals for cultivating my digital presence and identity revolve around being able to contribute more informed and articulate thoughts to many different educational forums, situations, and now business scenarios. Specific examples of the forums and situations that I would like to participate in with more knowledge, skills, and ability to articulate pertinent issues are: interactions with colleagues in my teaching role with an educational publisher that is actively promoting a digital platform being rolled out in various school boards across Canada, face-to-face interactions with teaching colleagues that I work to support with aforementioned digital learning platform, online professional learning networks (PLNs) on Twitter, and in my interest to eventually share short articles on current edtech issues via Twitter, LinkedIn, or Innovate My School (an online community of educators sharing articles and posts out of the UK host website). My MALAT student blog (WordPress) will be an important tool to help me to cultivate my digital identity in a more foundational way than anything that I have yet embarked upon; it will be a great guide and formative resource for me to begin to generate the knowledge and ability to articulate relevant thinking about teaching and learning in this digital age.

My approach for achieving these goals is to continue to completely embrace the challenge and processes involved in starting to increase my knowledge of issues in the fields of education and edtech, regularly contributing content to my personal MALAT blog, and improving my academic writing skills. The content of our two current courses (LRNT521 and LRNT522) will help to start to build my knowledge-base in terms of content. However, I plan on committing at least 30 minutes each week to studying resources offered through RRU’s Writing Centre, as well as regularly perusing the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) Guide, Sixth Edition. I am also going to seek out a mentor with a strong academic background from my professional circle that will commit to giving me occasional feedback on my academic writing.

Identification of skills and knowledge gaps: I most need to gain a deeper understanding of the theoretical frameworks that will guide some of my research and subsequent writing. As previously mentioned, I must also commit to developing a stronger understanding of the structure and principles of academic writing at the graduate level.

 Strategies and approaches to address the identified gaps: In terms of the knowledge gaps that I need to fill, I plan to read, read, read, and read some more about topics presented in our MALAT courses to better inform me on a personal and professional level about different issues and theories in education and technology today. In terms of the gaps that I need to fill in my academic writing skills, I have already booked two appointments with Teresa Bell at the RRU Writing Centre: one 1 hour appointment for feedback on how to improve upon the structure of an already graded essay, and a second appointment of 30 minutes to seek feedback on an upcoming assignment that I have started to write. I plan on continuing to work with the resources offered by Teresa and the Writing Centre to help me to improve my writing skills throughout the MALAT program.

Measures of Success (by end of LRNT521 course – 9 weeks):

I will have continued to contribute to my personal MALAT blog — my personal cyberinfrastructure (Campbell, 2009), cultivating my digital identity through many of the activities and reflections that will populate the blog.

I will have revised my LinkedIn account – updating and adding some recent posts.

I will have joined a PLN on Twitter that I attend for regular discussion sessions.

I will have started to contribute more thoughts to the Twitter posts of some of the people that inspire me and push me in my thinking and practice.

I would like to be working towards contributing a very short article, perhaps an excerpt from one of my MALAT assignments or reflections, to the Innovate My School online community of educators.

 

Campbell, G. (2009). A personal cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review, 44(5), 58-59. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure

White, D., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). doi:10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171

Attribution

Photo by Kim McNaughton