For this activity, I created a visual map of my digital network to show the different communities, platforms, and spaces I interact with online. One thing that stood out while building it was how much overlap exists between different parts of my digital life.
A lot of the tools and platforms I originally thought of as academic or professional now cross into other areas as well. GitHub, LinkedIn, ChatGPT, and my WordPress blog all connect into teaching, technical development, academic learning, and professional identity at the same time.
I also noticed that some parts of my network feel much more interconnected than others. My Royal Roads learning network overlaps quite a bit with my teaching and technical communities, especially through online collaboration tools and shared digital spaces. At the same time, personal areas like family, soccer, travel, and friends remain somewhat more separate.
Rather than focusing only on people, I decided to create more of a socio-technical network map that included platforms, communities, tools, and institutions. I felt that represented my actual digital presence more accurately.
I created the visual using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the vis-network library. Building it manually actually made me think more carefully about how connected these different parts of my digital identity really are.
28 May 2026 at 12:56 pm
Hi Craig,
I appreciate the approach you took to this activity. I focused on my LinkedIn connections, which allowed me to experiment with different ways of technically visualizing the dataset, but ultimately, I don’t feel the learning was all that relevant to evaluating my digital presence.
While more manual, the approach you took to synthesizing the digital networks you belong to is more pertinent to the reflection we need to engage with in this course. I may draw inspiration from your post to rethink the work that I completed in the context of my DIDP plan.
Thank you for the inspiration!
Claire