Good Afternoon All!
This week, I am working on mid-course blog feedback and should have this for everyone by the end of next week. This is formative feedback only, with no impact on your course assessment. It is intended to keep us connected and give you a sense of how your current blogging efforts are landing from my perspective. I will email these to you individually.
While working on this task, I have noted some commonalities in the posts as well as perhaps a few missing ideas that I thought I might highlight for everyone here along with questions that I hope will help spark additional posts and conversation in the blog comments. I considered adding these thoughts as comments within the blogs, but I know how challenging it is to keep track of everything while also working on the debate activity, so decided to send this as a course announcement instead.
A “Meta” Question to Consider
A funny thing about education programs is that we are always engaged in teaching and learning about teaching and learning. In that spirit—and as something to consider as we prepare for the upcoming debate activity—I pose the following meta question(s):
· Why do you suppose that the MALAT program and LRNT 521 specifically, have been designed as they are? For example, what are the advantages and disadvantages of individual participant blogs? How does the fact that these blogs are open to the rest of the internet rather than withing an LMS like Moodle impact how we interact and learn together? In what ways does the course design encourage or otherwise impact our experience of learning in an online networked environment? How does the lived experience of this design align with what we have been reading from the literature?
Unit 2 – Activity 2 | Map your use of technology as it pertains to the resident-visitor typology
White and LeCornu (2011) replaced Prensky's "digital native/immigrant" binary with a continuum between two modes of practice: visitor mode treats the web as a toolbox (log in, complete a task, log out, leave no trace), while resident mode treats it as a place where one lives, builds presence, and is recognized. The same person might use both, depending on context, such as tool and purpose. Contrast this with Cormier's (2018) "alternative tension pair" exercise where he asks us to invent or adopt a different tension that exposes what the visitor-resident map hides: consumption vs. contribution, performing vs. being, tracked vs. untrackable.
Further thoughts and questions to consider on this topic:
· The visitor-resident typology was published in 2011, before TikTok, before context collapse became the default condition of being online, and before generative AI became involved in much of what gets posted. Which features of contemporary digital life does the typology still illuminate, and which might it now obscure? If you had to write a 2026 sequel paper, what would the new tension pair be?
· White and LeCornu’s (2011) framing assumes that "leaving a trace" is a choice. However, in our current reality, even visitor-mode activity generates persistent data in many cases, with true anonymity difficult to achieve. Has the visitor end of the continuum effectively disappeared for some purposes, and if so, what does the typology still indicate?
Unit 2 – Activity 3 | Begin Assignment 1: Create, Cultivate, and Reflect on your Digital Presence
Boyd's (2011) chapter is foundational to the DIDP activity that runs through our course. She argues that networked technologies have produced networked publics characterized by four affordances and three dynamics. The four affordances are persistence (content endures in time), replicability (it can be copied without quality loss), scalability (it can reach unintended audiences), and searchability (it can be found by people you didn't anticipate). The three dynamics that follow are invisible audiences, context collapse (the flattening of distinct social contexts into a single audience), and the blurring of public and private. None of these are discretionary as they are the conditions of online expression. Schryver (2013) offers some similar ideas in a practical rather than theoretical form built around questions of who we are when online and how that identity is similar and different to our “real” offline identity.
Further thoughts and questions to consider on this topic:
· The DIDP is intended as a plan for your MALAT program, but isolated plans frequently fail at first contact with reality. Is there a difference between the plan you'll actually use and the plan that you develop during LRNT 521? How might this old quote from Dwight Eisenhower be useful in considering your DIDP planning process?
· Several of the Unit 2 readings push against the assumption that more digital presence is always better. Under what conditions, in your professional and personal life, might the right move be to reduce your digital presence rather than expand it?
· Your DIDP positions you as the author of your digital identity. Yet self-searches of the kind suggested by Schryver (2013) will likely surface Wikipedia entries, employer pages, third-party search results, and social media accounts that reference and shape your online identity that you were probably unaware of. How do you cultivate identity in a space where you are not the only author of your story? What does an effective DIDP look like when creation of your online presence is distributed?
Please let me know if any questions arise during debate preparation and enjoy the rest of your week!
Russ