The act of creating a Visitor/Resident typology, presented as an alternative to Prensky’s (2001) Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants typology, was thought-provoking. White and Le Cornu, (2011) in the Visitor/Resident typology present us with useful distinctions about how we behave and interact with the Internet/Web based on our interests, needs, and the context of our usage. The act of using White and Le Cornu’s Visitor/Resident continuum, and then following White’s demonstration of adding another axis to address the distinctions between Personal and Business/Institutional uses, further illuminated interesting personal patterns. It has been just over the last year of my personal and professional journeys that I have ventured more along White and Le Cornu’s continuum to the Resident quadrants of this typology; previously, I was more content to use the sources and services on the Internet (as a visitor) versus creatively or collaboratively adding content (as a resident) that would stay there, even after I had signed out of the app. Education, both personally and professionally have motivated me to engage more as a resident; I have seen myself grow both personally and professionally as a result. As we discussed in class, it is not necessarily better to be more active on the resident or visitor areas of the continuum, just different, due to different motivating factors and contexts, both personal and professional (or institutional).

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