What I have witnessing right now while taking this course is a digital explosion in the Higher Education. From being used by online teaching lecturers, the closing down of Universities around the world has forced everyone into the digital tools and rooms. More and more are are forced to climb a very steep learning curve in a short period of time to accommodate the needs of the students, and thereby go from being a visitor, which by David White and Alison Le Cornu talks about, to becoming more and more a resident. The speed of courses and exams being executed digitally within just a week is amazing and shows the incredible resourcefulness people possess when facing something that needs to be done. The creativeness and the willingness to share experiences and stories about successful implementation of digital tools in teaching has amazed me and has showed me that faced with the goal to keeping the students’ education intact the lecturers are taking the campus courses into the digital world in a never seen pace.
Looking at my own digital literacy, I would say that I am between a visitor and resident. At work I am more a resident than a visitor, and I use digital tools to a great extent when I am away from my home office, often for three to four weeks. The digital tools allows me to take advantage of connecting with people from wherever I am, whenever I need and in whichever time zone. In contrast, as a private citizen, I have become more and more a visitor. I used to use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter frequently but have come to cherish personal connection and face-to-face meetings whenever I can. However, having lived abroad a couple times in my life, the possibility to connect with friends via FaceTime and Zoom is wonderful and an invaluable way to keep the friendship alive.
For week three, I look forward to learning more about how the benefits and challenges of openness in education. In particular at the issues around copyright and the open licensing of content (Creative Commons). There’s a lot to learn about that!
