LRNT 521 Unit 2. Activity 2 Resident – Visitor map

Resident – Visitor map

As I researched this post (which takes a look at modes of engagement), I did not expect to see much traffic in my digital spaces. Studying the results reveals aspects of my digital presence I have not tracked nor thought about. The map is a bird’s eye view of how I spend some of my time, or perhaps, a lot of my time. My personal social media presence is locked down. I choose who is allowed in to my space to share and to comment. LinkedIn and Twitter are the two platforms I use to keep up with technology in my industry. Early in this assignment then, I thought about what I wanted to do with social media. What was at the bottom of my digital identity? In Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications, Danah Boyd (2010) shares her idea around Network publics and how groupings work within social media sites.

— Social network sites are similar to many other genres of social media and online communities that support computer-mediated communication, but what defines this particular category of websites is the combination of features that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). For the most part, I feel this definition fits my locked down, digital self and presence. (Boyd 2010) —

I took a look at the specific platforms I use. Most of my research activities are in the Resident-Professional quadrant and I also have a presence in the Professional-Personal quadrant. From there, I reflected on this course, my personal life and my professional life and exactly what will my digital profile be.

— Profiles are not unique to social network sites, but they are central to them. Profiles both represent the individual and serve as the locus of interaction. Because of the inherent social – and often public or semi-public – nature of profiles, participants actively and consciously craft their profiles to be seen by others. Profile generation is an explicit act of writing oneself into being in a digital environment.” (Boyd, 2006) —

Reading that rather poignant explanation of how we show our digital selves, gave me pause to consider the social media landscape of this programme (MALAT) and a whole new part of learning that I have delved into. What will my profile say about me? Will alter my profile according to specific sites? Am I invested enough to cultivate my presence?

I looked at Boyd’s work on networked publics and I found my profile and how I manage my public self are more linked more than I thought early on. If found myself agreeing with Boyd regarding profiles and how we manage them.

Next, I took a look at my use of these publics. Primarily the platforms are for research, development of various content. I use for a variety of reasons. Audio/Visual meetings have artificially increased that mode of engagement. I meet with clients, students, colleagues.

— Together, profiles, Friends lists, and various public communication channels set the stage for the ways in which social network sites can be understood as publics. In short, social network sites are publics both because of the ways in which they connect people en masse and because of the space they provide for interactions and information. They are networked publics because of the ways in which networked technologies shape and configure them. (Boyd 2010) —

— We make these decisions constantly as we decide who to follow, friend or comment on. “Forms of participatory culture considered by such work include creative expressions like fan fiction and digital mash-ups as well as collaborative problem-solving, group affiliation and media circulation. The argument these authors make is that practices of this sort will increasingly enhance our society through augmenting people’s skills necessary for functioning well in the contemporary workplace and for diversifying creative and cultural production. Jenkins et al, (2002) —

Our digital spaces, ID and Presence offer information about our use of social media and what we wish to do with it.”Recent developments on the web and in the realm of other digital media have made it increasingly possible for people to share their creations with others” (Hargittai 2000) I realise there are more platforms or publics that could support me professionally. The personal me is fine with locking down sites and being specific about who I interact with.The professional me is missing the opportunity to, really, be on the cutting edge of my field and the wider industry. From there, I would be able to guide and mentor the Television & Film  students and take them to a space, traditionally, which they have thought of. Could publics and internet profiles and open source, introduce Television & Film and its protective, copyright centric ideology? — In the short term it’s about getting this stuff in to the hands of teachers who will want to make a difference, and giving them the validation and the encouragement they need to keep fighting the good fight on behalf of the new media literacies. Jenkins on Participatory Culture, Big Thinkers Series ( 00:07:11:00). —

I will look at cultivating an on line presence that is close to MALAT and considers the Television & Film Industry through all of its pre, prod and post productions needs. I am looking forward to seeing what is out there for my students and for myself. I will track the number of times I interact, on what platform and why. By the end of this course, when we reflect on our DIDP journey, I will hopefully have some numbers to work with. If not, that will also tell me that my DIDP is quite private.

 

 

2 thoughts on “LRNT 521 Unit 2. Activity 2 Resident – Visitor map

  1. Hi Katia!
    I like this map format. It’s so nice looking. I can relate to your comments about Youtube. Suddenly it is relevant because of teaching online and for me it is so messy because of my children’s youtube use and my own identity merging. I see you have this noted here also.
    One thing I am very curious about is Discord. I have been considering using it as a back channel for my classes, my students are all over the world and I have set up a discord account but that is as far as I have gone with it. Are you using Discord as a back channel for teaching? I would love to know more about this.

    1. Hi Karen;

      To prevent cross contamination, consider using your work email for YouTube and clearly name the channel after you and your work. The channel is private/not public and I post the link on our content page.

      Normally, my Film & TV students have a two hour lecture. I would post the lecture online via YouTube and they come in to the lab and demonstrate the skill. It is based on the flipped learning model.

      Now, the lecture is the same. That content is on the programme we use D2L – Desire 2 Learn. Discord is for our synchronous time together. I created a server for each section and labelled them as such; 9-11am Section 4. I then sent out their respective invites, making sure the invite did not expire, because, well, they are students and prone to – I forgot to do that syndrome.

      My children are all gamers and have used Discord for a while now. They were able to watch me set the servers up and I practiced with them. 99.99% of the students already had a Discord account. For a video heavy course, Discord has a huge con – playback seriously lags. What I did instead was create a Frame.IO Drop box and have them upload to the appropriate folder. During class, we would mute our mics and watch the project deliverable at the same time. There is a chat option available as well.

      I am going to research options hoping to find something else that works for us. If the content was not video heavy, Discord would work well.

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