Watching Dave White’s video ‘Just the Mapping’ and working on my own map was an enlightening exercise that led me into deep reflection. This activity also made me ask myself some tough questions. Am I using technology or is technology using me? How was my life before the pandemic? How can I go back if I wanted to? What after this? Who am I? How does my digital presence quantify me? Does it? How much of my digital personas’ activities are on my free will and my free will only? What is my impact on the broader eco-system? What is the flipside of all this? What do I know, and do I know what I need to know? These questions remain unanswered.

    I took a slightly different approach to my visitor resident map. Last year, in December I made a decision to exercise some degree of control and discipline to my social media engagement. I disengaged from Facebook, and set some parameters around how often I engage in the platforms that had become a way of life for me. So in my map you can see the platforms I continue to use multiple times every day in the inner circle, the ones I may use once a day or few times a week in the next circle and those that I use few times a month in the last. On the ‘Resident’ side of the spectrum are spaces I am comfortable in and are a part of my life one way or the other and on the ‘Visitor’ side of the spectrum I have placed platforms that are more needs-based. I then added a match flame in the middle to remind me that all this can ignite knowledge, spark curiosity and light up dark days, however without care can quickly get out of control engulfing me like wildfire.

   Having said this, if I were to have engaged in this activity two years back, a number of items on my resident side would have been in my visitor side, it is clear that my presence is somewhat fluid based on my life, priorities, interests and demands at any given time. In completing my map, I was fascinated by how differently we choose, use and engage in these platforms. For example, for some e-mail is a mode of communication, for select friends while for some others, it is used to share knowledge, subscribe to learning materials, for marketing, to share newsletters and maybe even to be connected to alumnae group

    With my mind full of questions and revelations, I moved onto review Dave Cormier’s blog post ‘Digital Practices Mapping – Intro activity for digital literacies course’

   Here I aimed to distance myself from the tools and focus on my practices/activities as a whole and quickly found that there was going to be nothing in the ‘Analogue’ half unless I added some personal activities in the Analogue-Individual quadrant. Completing this exercise did lead me to some trepidation as to how much technology has taken over my life and possibly my sense of self. I have also come a long way, from growing up in a small village/town with no computers or television fighting for my right to education, to where I am today. Yet my journey has just begun and MALAT is leading me through my version upgrades.

 

   References

White, D. (2013, September 13). Just the Mapping [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK1Iw1XtwQ

Cormier, D. (2018, March 31). Digital Practices Mapping – Intro activity for digital literacies course. Dave’s Educational Blog. http://davecormier.com/edblog/2018/03/31/digital-practices-mapping-intro-activity-for-digital-literacies-course/