Have a professional digital identity and the difference between being a resident and visitor online are one of the earlier concepts covered in ONL, yet it is one of the concepts that stick with me the most. Being trained in conventional classroom teacher, we ofter overlook the importance of our online presence. Once in a while there would be article about educator who have controversial behaviour online, such as posting photograph of their private lives. However, I learnt that a professional digital identity is not about hiding your private life from the eyes of your learners or others, but more of building a brand for yourself online as an educator, academic or researcher. Some of the things we should always remember is that any online speech, comments or image posted would have an effect on our professional identity, whether it is meant for a professional or private audience. 

Having online presence is not only beneficial to our career, but also, it would be important for engaging learners in our online learning community. Research have shown that students find that they are more engaged in learning community where the instructor has a well established online identity as they would feel more connected to the educator. Further more with the presence on video conference technology, student are able to communicate more effectively online and educators would find it slightly easier to take care of any social and emotional issue that would have emerged over the course of learning online.

Another aspect that I found to be very important is designing blended learning lessons, even though most of the lesson that would be conduct by me is online, there are still certain part that would be held in person. Having all the material online would allow learners to access them anytime any where, but having face to face lesson would make the lesson much more effective or efficient for most of them. We would be able to get instant feedback from the learner on the ground, and make changes to the learning material right away. 

One of the things that I would like to do for my learners when it come to having online lesson is to co-create material with educator from another institute or country as COVID technological rush has made connecting with educators globally a much easier tasks as compared to before. If it is possible we might even allow the learners to interact with other learners form other time zone or country through the internet. Personally, I feel that it is very important for learners to work with people from a different culture and it would definitely be highly beneficial for the learners.

Have a professional digital identity and the difference between being a resident and visitor online are one of the earlier concepts covered in ONL, yet it is one of the concepts that stick with me the most. Being trained in conventional classroom teacher, we ofter overlook the importance of our online presence. Once in a while there would be article about educator who have controversial behaviour online, such as posting photograph of their private lives. However, I learnt that a professional digital identity is not about hiding your private life from the eyes of your learners or others, but more of building a brand for yourself online as an educator, academic or researcher. Some of the things we should always remember is that any online speech, comments or image posted would have an effect on our professional identity, whether it is meant for a professional or private audience. 

Having online presence is not only beneficial to our career, but also, it would be important for engaging learners in our online learning community. Research have shown that students find that they are more engaged in learning community where the instructor has a well established online identity as they would feel more connected to the educator. Further more with the presence on video conference technology, student are able to communicate more effectively online and educators would find it slightly easier to take care of any social and emotional issue that would have emerged over the course of learning online.

Another aspect that I found to be very important is designing blended learning lessons, even though most of the lesson that would be conduct by me is online, there are still certain part that would be held in person. Having all the material online would allow learners to access them anytime any where, but having face to face lesson would make the lesson much more effective or efficient for most of them. We would be able to get instant feedback from the learner on the ground, and make changes to the learning material right away. 

One of the things that I would like to do for my learners when it come to having online lesson is to co-create material with educator from another institute or country as COVID technological rush has made connecting with educators globally a much easier tasks as compared to before. If it is possible we might even allow the learners to interact with other learners form other time zone or country through the internet. Personally, I feel that it is very important for learners to work with people from a different culture and it would definitely be highly beneficial for the learners.