The digital age refers to the current development era in which social, economic and political activities / processes are driven by application of Information & Communication Technologies / digital technologies (Esharenana Adomi 2008).

By doing a self-evaluation with David White’s film (Visitors and Residents) in mind, I can conclude that my engagement with digital tools is both as a visitor and as a resident and the mode I adopt depends primarily on the purpose of my interaction with the given digital tool.

I am a visitor when I do Google searches, online banking transactions, online stock trading, hotel bookings and flight bookings. On the other hand, I am a resident when I engage on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

I also do concur with David White that categorizing individuals as either digital natives or digital immigrants based on the age at which they engage with the web and digital tools is not right. Successful engagement with digital tools stems more from the motivation of the person and not the age of the person.

Another platform through which I engage with digital tools is as a tutor at the Faculty of Capacity Development (www.faculty.ie). Through the Faculty of Capacity Development, we offer online courses such as on Clinical Trials.

Tracing back, I have identified that my first encounter with online learning was when I enrolled as a student for the online Master of Science degree in Regulatory Sciences which was offered by the University of the Western Cape, South Africa in collaboration with Hibernia College, Ireland. I have therefore participated in online courses as a student and as a tutor.

To further improve my skills in developing and delivering online courses, I decided to enroll in ONL191 which was highly recommended by a colleague at the Faculty of Capacity Development (www.faculty.ie).  

My ONL191 experience so far has been a fruitful one, the few hitches I experienced notwithstanding. I was not able to participate in the webinar due to a technical hitch. Some tight work schedules also lead to me missing two PBL Group 6 live meetings. The tweet chat was also a challenge since I forgot to start with the hashtag before posting. This will not happen going forward. I had an easy time working with shared documents on Drive.

I look forward to Topic 2 and with better time management I hope to participate in all the activities.

References

Esharenana Adomi. January 2018.

Chapter: Africa and the Challenge of Bridging the Digital Divide

In book: Handbook of Research on Public Information Technology

David White film: Visitors and Residents (part 1)

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOG3iThmRI&feature=youtu.be

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

Available at:  https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3171/3049