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What is a digital identity?

Someone’s digital identity is determined by their presence online. With that being said, what you post, share, how you are online, how you engage with others, and how you use the online tools is what mainly determines your online presence. Digital identity is your digital footprint and it is assessed by what you access on the world wide web. Based on what you search, view and access, it can contribute to your digital footprint in a positive way, or in a negative way. This is why employers access your digital identity before they meet candidates for jobs as they can get a firm understanding of someone based on their social media presence. Keeping this information in mind is extremely important as it is often easy to impact your digital identity negatively by posting pictures or content that is seen as offensive or negative.

How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?

When accessing social media, it should be used vastly differently when used personally versus professionally. Personal social media can be used casually as it is mainly used for entertainment, to pass time, to be connected with your peers, and to socialize. The usage of social media personally is intended for friends and family to see what you are up to, what your interests are, and to share information. One rule of thumb for the personal use of social media should be to always make sure that whatever you are posting is reasonable for your grandma to see. Making a fool of yourself online by posting negative or offensive content not only will impact you negatively from your friends and family, but you can also offend others in society.

Professional usage of social media is very uniform as it isn’t used the same way as a personal social media account. When using social media professionally, it should solely be used to connect with others, search for job opportunities, and make a skillful identity. Avoiding posting things such as what you got up to for the weekend, or what your favorite place to go out for drinks is, can keep your profile at a high standard. Maintaining a professional appearance online is extremely important, as it is crucial to not mistake your personal life with your professional life.

How do digital identities converge in networked publics-what are the impacts and/or benefits?

With there being such a variety of social media platforms, our digital identity is determined by what we access and search while on the world wide web. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and various others are known to group individuals with alike opinions. By connecting people with alike digital identities, it creates a personalized learning network (PLN). Often, communicating with others who are like-minded is a positive thing as others can give you feedback on certain topics. On the contrary, having a PLN with individuals like-minded creates an echo chamber. Having an echo chamber in public networks can be negative as at times you will be only getting one opinion. An example of an echo chamber in my personal life is how my inner circle of friends influenced me to get a dirt bike this past summer. By me consistently being around my friends and hearing them talk about how they love being out in the trails, I found myself impulse buying a dirt bike. Even though I knew how my parents were completely against me investing in one, the thought of me missing out on being with the peers in my PLN, I still found myself getting a bike regardless.

Can a digital wallet provide trust in networked publics?

Digital wallets are a new feature on our phones that are becoming more and more common. Personally, I have both my debit and credit card available on my phone to access whenever I need to purchase something. At times, I have questioned the reliability of having a digital wallet as it seems like anyone who picks up your phone can access your cards with the touch of a button. Although at times it seems relatively easy to access these accounts, it is a lot more secure using digital wallets than anticipated.

It is said by the website credit card genius that digital wallets are in fact more secure than using your physical wallet. The reason why it is more secure is because with all cards in today’s society having the ability to tap for purchase, there is little to no security on your cards now. On the other hand, your phone requires you to constantly enter your passcode, or scan your face/thumb to allow you to access your cards. The tap feature can save a lot of time and is very convenient, but if you were to ever lose your wallet, it is necessary to cancel all of your cards as soon as possible. That is another benefit of having a mobile wallet, if you were to ever lose your phone, you wouldn’t have to worry about others using your phone to access your bank accounts.

References:

Stoller, Eric. “What is Digital Identity?” YouTube, uploaded by University of Derby, 25 Nov 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RryRbJza0&feature=youtu.be. Accessed 01 Mar 2021

Personal vs. Professional Social Networks. (2017, March 10). Personal vs. professional social networks. https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/personal-vs-professional-networks/#:~:text=People%20use%20personal%20networks%20to,affairs%20updates%20on%20professional%20networks.

Genius, C. C. (2021, February 5). creditcardGenius. https://creditcardgenius.ca/blog/best-digital-wallets.

After doing this week’s reading I am more curious about all of the forms of educational technology I have used throughout my years of schooling. I found it very intriguing how technologies such as MOOC’s and AI’s were based on advancements of certain ED technologies over the years. This made me realize how rapidly changing and advancing our society is today and how useful all of the technological advancements are. Through the readings I found there were certain technologies that were proven to be important building blocks for advancements, and other ones that were proven to not be very successful through trials.

Understanding the importance of the technologies listed in Dr. Wellers article can help further humanize online learning. Using various forms of ED tech will allow students to better engage with their learning and make them feel more comfortable working online. Especially during this pandemic this is important for instructors to keep in mind for educating students. For example using blogs and video multimedias has been proven to make students to want to engage more when used effectively. Both forms of multimedia are excellent ways for students to speak their voice and be heard exactly the way they want to be.

After reading about the improvements made over 20 years of technological advancements, I have a couple questions I would like to ask Dr. Weller:

1. Which technological improvement over the years would you consider to be the most vital advancement of ED tech?
2. What is the most useful online tool to use for education?

Reading Notes:

References:

https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/e69021f2-91b6-4ca4-9d0b-81d3e9748707

Through the first portion of this semester all students have found the necessity to learn and adapt new skills for online learning. With the sudden shift from face-to-face learning to this new online learning system, I have noticed some ways teachers have executed effective teaching skills. For those teachers who are receiving voluntary participation and are actively engaging with their class have proven their implicit and explicit knowledge of their course material. There are also classes I am currently taking where it feels as if the professor is non-existent and I find the need to have to teach the material to myself. In some of these cases it can be easy for students to tell how effective a professor is at teaching their course material during these difficult times.

In this week’s reading I found it very intriguing when I came across the Community of Inquiry model, or the CoI model. This model is important to keep in mind for online teaching because it stresses the importance of teacher involvement in learning. Students have proven to respond well to “constructivism” because they can consider their prior experiences and relate it to their learning. This model can be broken down into three key components; the three being cognitive presence, teaching presence, and social presence. The first element being cognitive presence means the critical thinking done by a student. The critical thinking students will make focuses on the outcome of their learning experience, so it is a key element to the model. The teaching part of the model is extremely important because in online learning there is and understanding that you are in a “teacher less” environment. Although students do not see their educators face-to-face on a consistent basis, it is important that they do not feel alone especially when they will have important questions to ask. The social aspect is the last element to the model. This element is very important as it demonstrates a student’s capability of putting their own personality and emotions into their learning.

Focusing on the CoI model in regard to online teaching is very important for all educators to keep in mind. All parts of the model are interconnected and benefit the students the most when they are all focused on by the instructor. When teachers participate in class discussions it has been proven to raise the cognitive presence of the whole class. With a solid social presence established by the students, the cognitive presence will flourish and there will be lots of opinions. Without a strong teaching aspect, the cognitive presence will be minimal as there will be a lack of knowledge of the content.

Overall the Community of Inquiry model has taught to me that online learning has a lot of aspects to it, but the key component to the model is the teaching aspect. Without being able to learn the course material effectively, it affects all of the students in the course negatively and reduces the participation/will to learn the material. When instructors show emotion, and actively engage with their class it has been proven to raise the overall satisfaction level of the entire class. Educators who demonstrate the ability to make the course interesting enough, make the class want to participate regularly and prove their implicit and explicit knowledge of the content will be the most effective in their teaching. There are a lot of benefits to online and a lot of costs to not learning face-to-face with an instructor, but with some extra effort online schooling can be a very effective way of teaching in my experience.

References:

Where’s the Teacher?  Defining the Role of Instructor Presence in Social Presence and Cognition in Online Education