In the first topic of our ONL course we talked about digital literacy and what it takes to go and feel comfortable online. The ways we use different online platforms were nicely illustrated by David White who divided our online space into areas for personal or institutional use, and areas that we use as visitors or as residents. I have thought about my online presence at this moment in my life and I have drawn it according to David White’s model, and came up with this figure:

Even though I do not consider myself very much digitally literate, and I am not in the forefront of new adopters who are first to start using new platforms and technologies, my online presence seems pretty busy. My communication in both private and institutional area happens through email and Skype, where on Skype I am much more in the resident mode as one usually actively participates in video calls. The remaining exclusively private communication is mediated by WhatsApp or Viber, and social network I mainly use as private person, both as visitor and resident is Facebook. On Facebook I also follow some institutions and persons related to my work. Social networks I mainly use for my work are LinkedIn and ResearchGate. In both I am only slightly in resident mode, and this is something I would like to change, and would like to use this platforms more actively.

For the purpose of this ONL course I have also started using Google+, Zoom and I am even writing this blog. Although I think writing a blog is a good way to formulate and summarize your thoughts, I am not sure I would continue with it, as it seems it requires a lot of my time to adequately express myself, but maybe it is also a matter of practice, so with time I might go back to it and use it more often.

Finally the example of the platform I use only as visitor for private purposes is YouTube. Although videos can often convey the message more directly then written text, I am not very much used to constantly have the headphones on, so I prefer to watch them without sound and with subtitles, unless they are musical videos, of course.

In the end of the day, I think it is important that users feel comfortable using the online tools and being present online, and each of us should find the ways to which extent to use each of them, but I also think it is valuable to challenge ourselves and try new tools and platforms to find new communities we like and to be connected with people in new inspiring ways.

Reference:

David White: Visitors and Residents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOG3iThmRI&feature=youtu.be