The main discussion in topic 1 focused on the concepts of Visitors and Residents and how each group engages differently with the digital tools in the education system. According to White & Le Cornu, (2011), a Visitor is someone who uses the Web when needed to find something useful to achieve a specific task, without leaving a digital footprint or creating a personal profile or online identity. In contrast, a Resident is someone who sees the Web as a social space where they connect, share, and express themselves, with a lasting online presence and identity (White & Le Cornu, 2011).

Personally, if I were to describe myself, I would say that I am a mix of both a Visitor and a Resident.  While I tend to be more Visitor in my private life, I take on more Resident in my professional life depending on the context and purpose of my online engagement. White & Le Cornu (2011) explain that engagement with online technology involves using technology either as a tool to accomplish specific tasks or as a social to connect, share, and interact with others. Referring to the Online Education matrix described by David White in the part 1 workshop, I would position myself more in the individual visitor and institutional resident quadrants, as these best reflect my patterns of online activity.

People use digital technologies for various purposes. For instance, I often use digital media for communication and information searching, which aligns with Visitor behaviour. I am careful about my online presence and do not share much from my personal life. However, I am more active in professional communities and learning networks. I tend to participate in professional networks in order to share content, collaborate online, and engage in professional development, all of which align more with Resident mode.

While these varying behaviours reflect the concepts of engagement with online technology, they also highlight the distinction between Digital Native and Digital Immigrant. A Digital Native is someone who is born into the digital world who naturally engages technology, wheras a Digital Immigrant is someone who learned to use digital tools later in life and still shows habits from the pre-digital age (White & Le Cornu, 2011).

The ONL experience offers me an opportunity to reflect on and confidently enhance my understanding of open learning areas using digital tools. The discussions around the Visitors and Residents model, along with the approach the course has taken, helped me recognize that digital engagement is not fixed but fluid, changing according to the context and purpose. The collaborative activities and group work have allowed me to experience new tools and platforms, some of which I have not used so far. This reflects my experience as a Digital Immigrant. I recognized that although I wasn’t born in a digital era, I should consistently learn to use new digital tools, depending on the activities, I engage in at each moment.

I also appreciated hearing different perspectives from peers from various disciplines and cultures, which highlighted the diverse ways people approach digital learning and identity. As both a learner and educator, I realize that I shouldn’t limit myself to one approach or use only a narrow set of digital tools. Different digital tools can serve different purposes, and in the digital era, I should remain flexible in using various tools. Moreover, in education, I work with diverse age groups and capabilities, so it is important to be open, flexible, creative and conscious about selecting tools for teaching, discussing, and communicating.

Another key takeaway from ONL is that digital competence is not just about technical skills, but also ethical thinking, identity management, and the ability to engage ethically and effectively online, as Doug Belshaw describes in his TEDx talk. The visitors and residents’ model is also useful because it offers a nuanced understanding of digital natives vs. digital immigrants. I also found it interesting to reflect on how digital spaces shape our learning behaviours and how important it is to create safe, inclusive and supportive environments for online learning.

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