Topic 1: Online participation and digital literacies

This is my first online course. In the beginning, it was rather daunting, learning how to navigate through the course materials and learning new tools, having to deal with internet connection dropping, and so forth. Nonetheless, I gained insight to a new learning experience as well as an opportunity to connect with fellow participants from a variety of backgrounds and locations., interacting with participants from Nordic countries and South Africa. The result: an engaging and vibrant exchange of ideas, opinions, perspectives, experiences and learning. Through these interactions, I have gathered and learned new ways of practice that I can use for my own courses.

Interacting on an online platform stirred some initial reservations: about sharing your thoughts and ideas with people who are unknown to you. However, this thought dissipated very quickly. I believe it is because of the group. While there were members who were entirely at ease within the digital environment, they remained patient and supportive when ideas were shared. I began to sense the camaraderie, which kept me engaged and active in the discussions.

The first topic that group worked on was on Digital literacy. I stated with trying to gain a better understanding of how to define “Digital literacy”.  My initial understanding of digital literacy was rather myopic- having the ability to use technology, the skills required. But, when we started our discussions, I found myself caught in the midst of a very provocative conversation. I began researching on the topic. The article by Dr Bali articulated difference between digital skills and digital literacy. I will now conclude that digital literacy is not only the what and how, it is also why, when, who, and for whom.

For our assignment, the group decided to focus on digital identity. This then led to my next challenge: identifying my own identity. Using the David White’s V&R framework, as I began to plot in my digital activities on the axes, I see myself landing in different places within the continuum both as a visitor and a resident (David & Cornu, 2011). I can now understand why my friends and colleagues have often commented that my entries on Facebook are very random, dead. I certainly don’t leave a social identity on Facebook. On the other hand, a significant portion of my professional life is ‘living online’.  I most certainly am adopting a visitor approach for my personal life, and assuming the resident approach in my professional role. According to David & Cornu (2011), this pattern of visitor-resident approach is quite usual for someone in a leadership role. As I did the exercise, I became acquainted with my digital identity.

References

Maha Bali (2016). Knowing the difference between digital skills and digital literacies and teaching both. Accessed

https://literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/02/03/knowing-the-difference-between-digital-skills-and-digital-literacies-and-teaching-both

White, D.S., & Cornu, A.L. (2011). Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9), https://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049