Overall goal
My goal is to continually develop a digital presence and identity that allows me to share and expand my technical expertise while actively collaborating and learning from my MALAT colleagues. After completing our conceptual map on David White’s visitors and residents typology, I found that I am a resident in a few select technologies. These few residencies are highly influenced by my role requirements at work, so my hope is to find alternative ways to interact with these technologies. Campbell inspired me in saying innovation can be found by “Explore[ing] old ideas in new context”(Campbell, 2009). I hope to achieve this and additionally apply new ideas in old contexts to my work and MALAT studies
Identification of skills and knowledge gaps
Actively using multiple technologies through work and personal interest allows me to learn digital environments quickly. Once I am using a technology, I am skilled at conveying its use and capabilities in an easily consumable format. Currently, my struggles revolve around supporting my creations with correct design principals, pedagogies and other concepts I haven’t heard of yet. Filling these knowledge gaps will be key in developing my digital presence and ability to collaborate within my network as I will be better able to communicate the reasoning behind my ideas.
Approach for achieving my goal
To achieve my goal, I will actively avoid getting stuck in the technical aspects of my MALAT journey and focus more on the rationale and theories behind my endeavors. Following Boyd’s description of behaviourist pedagogies to “… [build] on a richer psychological understanding of learning and how it occurs” incapsulates the attitude and objective setting I will use throughout the MALAT program and beyond (Boyd, 2011). In addition, I will purposefully push myself to share more of my experiences and thoughts through posts and comments. This will provide solution to help decentralize my technology residencies and intrinsically expose myself to a diverse array of information.
Defining my goal success
At this moment I find setting specific objectives to achieve my goals difficult and hope that these will develop over time. For now I will measure success by ensuring to do a self check-in every week to acknowledge the achievements and challenges I encountered. An example achievement could be applying new theories to my work or MALAT studies. A challenge could be noticing myself getting too focused in technical aspects of a project instead of driving for richer understanding.
References
Campbell, G. (2009). A personal cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review, 44(5), 58-59.
Dron, J, & Anderson, T. (2014). Teaching Crowds. Athabasca University Press. (Note: free PDF available for download). Chapter 2.
Hi Zac,
I shared the same realization you did when completing the VR Typology mapping exercise. My ‘Resident’ use was almost exclusively work-driven. I look forward to taking up residence in some new virtual spaces where I can focus on the topics that I am most interested in exploring.
I work in Corporate Learning and we have all of these shiny new tools to generate online content. I want to make sure that we are creating effective learning opportunities for our employees by acknowledging the learning theories and best practices known in education. I look forward to really digging into design principles and pedagogies through the MALAT program as well.
Hi Zac,
I appreciate and identify with much of what you have shared – thank you! In particular, I love the piece of your plan to use some of your resident technologies in new ways. I think that I was approaching the challenge of cultivating my digital identity from a perspective of adding new technologies, but you are so wise to reframe how you use existing platforms first. I also appreciate your open stance to learning more about, “design principals, pedagogies and other concepts I haven’t heard of yet” then applying this knowledge.
I’m curious to know more about what you mean by “decentralize(ing) your technology residencies.” Does this allude to expanding your network, diversifying how you use existing resident technology, both, or something different?
Thanks again,
~Alisha
Hi Alisha,
By “decentralizing” I do mean a combination expanding my tech network and diversifying my existing resident technologies. I’m very comfortable with my current processes and technologies and I taking the MALAT program provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on those practices to see if they are the best for me and those involved. Our perspectives will likely shift numerous times as we learn more, so I’m excited for that! – Zac
We may be at the point in which there are just so many options for digital content creation tools, the leaders may appear from their compatibility to best incorporate design principles and pedagogies we will be learning. Definitely lots of shiny tools out there, but I also find the simplistic direct tools have their place as well!
Hi Zac, after reading your blog I realized that we share the same feeling when it comes to the understanding the technical aspects of technology and that our work environments put us both on the Resident side of our typology maps. I admire your writing skills and the easy-flow of ideas of your post. I also felt the same struggle to set specific goals and objectives at this early stage of the program. I am interested in knowing how will you do your weekly self-check? How will you measure your progress?
Thank you
-Luis
Hi Luis,
Thanks for your comment. I still find myself trying to find my MALAT writing “voice”, but we will have lots of opportunity to adjust and improve throughout the program! For my weekly check ins I’ve been adding events and moving them within a Trello board I created. At minimum I will pop in there every Monday to see if I achieve the post goals, deliverables, etc I want to. In practice I’m usually been in there about 3 times a week, it helps me have the course schedule items in a format I personally prefer. I’m still figuring out the measurement aspects of my DIDP, but have found adding my sticky note thoughts to the board has helped noting in something I may have struggled with or that was a great success. Some days I’ve even included tasks indirectly related such as “took a walk” after a hour at my desk to stretch and mentally recalibrate. I know as we to explore through our MALAT journey we will find more to measure progress. Even if we simply look back at our previous writing and seehow far we’ve improved with APA, conciseness or otherwise! – Zac
Hi Zac,
I like that your goal includes a willingness to share your “technical expertise” with your MALAT colleague. I will have to make sure to come to you with questions. I was wondering about your point about “filling these knowledge gaps will be key…to collaborate within my network”. Are you referring specifically to the MALAT network or are you thinking other possible networks that you will join along this journey? I would like to believe that this MALAT network is just the “springboard” to other networks out there. Thoughts? I also like your response to Luis regarding your successes. I strongly believe that we should celebrate them no matter how small and that self-care/wellness is so important to overall well-being. I’m always encouraging/challenging my team to carve out time for personal wellness.
Gail
Hi Zac,
Are you leveraging any existing platforms that can assist with learning and utilizing new technology?
Cheers,
Nitin