If you have navigated to this blog entry, you will no doubt have seen that this is not a new website. In fact, it has been around since 2017. That was the moment that I first decided to blur the boundary between my personal and professional life, resident-style[1] by hosting my academic interests (a resume of sorts, and somewhere to publicize my recent research and the resulting databases) alongside my extra-curriculars (in this case, by way of a travel blog) in one online space: my own website.

What you may also notice is that, sadly, the personal side of jeannecilliers.com has been dormant since that same year. No-one or thing is specifically to blame for this lapse. It was, as is usually the case when one neglects one thing or another, life getting in the way. Maintaining an active online presence can be quite a daunting task for those of us who are elsewise full-time employed or maintain more introverted inclinations…If I was to share this space openly as I had envisioned, chances were high that my students would stumble across it, and how much did I really care to share with them about my life outside of academia?

At the same time, privacy concerns more generally were surfacing in the public consciousness and I was more acutely aware of what my data was being stored and used for. I resented the notion that my online movements were being tracked as a means for third-party companies to advertise to me. Just because I purchased a new gardening book on Amazon did not mean that I wanted to be inundated with similar book recommendations on Facebook[2]. I decided to deactivate my Facebook account and downgrade my website to a more unassuming state (by unassuming I mean, the free version of this site and less widely known domain name).

And then 2020 happened. The global pandemic induced some much needed critical reflection upon the way I made use of the online space. If the only way I was going to communicate with people for the foreseeable future was going to be from behind a screen, I was going to need more and better tools. I started to wonder if there was a smarter way of addressing my desire to learn which did not come at the cost of violating my desire for privacy. And so I happened upon the call for applicants for an Open Networked Learning course taking place in the spring of 2021. Could this be the answer I was looking for?

I signed up and the first task just so happened to be to start blogging! So here we are. For better of for worse, I have re-launched my website and will reflect upon that decision as I move through this course. Fortunately, I have the support and guidance of a wonderful PBL group, many of whom I suspect, share the concerns that I have voiced. But more so, I think what we have in common is our eagerness to become more digitally literate. And here at the end of topic 1, I can say that I feel heartened by the prospect of doing so, together.

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

[2] The New York Times. 2018. What you dont’t know about how Facebook uses your data.

Available here