So here I am, starting to dig into the mountain of knowledge of digital literacy, by the opportunity that this course offers. My intention was to level up, at an arena that I, so far, have not bothered much about: the digital tools, the different social media platforms.

My motives were clear, just a few days ago. I wanted to develop in my professional area, I wanted to increase my possibilities to manage teaching situations and reach out to students in new ways. I didn´t reflect much about how it came that I don´t already posses these skills. Perhaps it just went along well with my self image as a middle aged mom. I´m simply a person who never learned, and never felt much pressure to learn, these things. The younger generation of the family was born into it, not me.

My private digital activity is low. It can definitely mostly be found at the ”visitor” space, considering the visitor and resident continuum described by White and Cornu (2011). If someone had asked me before this course started I guess my answer to why, would have been: lack of interest, lack of need, lack of social network who requires me to act differently and forces me to investigate it further.

As I took my next step (as I thought a strictly professional step) out in this world through the course, something interesting happened. Since the gap between my former activity and my new (professional) activity was rather big, my turning to a more ”resident” behavior all of a sudden was quite sensible. The intensity of the more resident mode affected me on a general basis. I feel as if it occupies me as a whole. The professional life comes crawling in and over and beneath. And it urges me to set up strategies to keep boundaries intact or at least reflect over the intensity of the flexible nature of these tools.

Something I had not thought about before I joined the course was the calmness and the ”unreachability” reserved for the ”visitor end” of the visitor and resident continuum mentioned by White and Cornu (a.a.). I guess that´s part of the motives behind my former digital pattern too, although I didn´t really realize it until now.

 

Reference:

White, D. & Le Cornu, A. (2011) Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9).