338 Blog post 2

Hello again!

This blog post is going to be highlighting the nature of digital identity, digital residency, Theories of personalized learning, and privacy.

Digital Identification

Digital identity is the culmination of your digital footprint, which includes publicly available information through different social media profiles. From here we can split it into two categories, personal and professional digital Identity.

These are two separate types of identification and should be segmented as such. Distancing these two types are very important as they can effect each other in unforeseen ways. A rogue post of you at a party doing something silly is not the kind of look that you want your employer to necessarily see.

Digital Residency and Security

The idea of digital residency has been the most interesting to me thus far. It identifies people based on their level of exposure to the digital landscape during their formative years. Growing up with the internet makes you a digital native, whereas others such as our parents and grandparents, are simply visitors. As a resident myself, I use the internet for a variety of things, and am competent in my abilities to comb through the web and make well informed choices around what I share and how I interface with websites. These skills are what I have picked up over the years of making mistakes and learning to accurately identify what is safe and what is not.

I have found a few websites that I use to keep myself safe as a digital resident.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/ This is a great website developed by an expert in cyber security that access’s illegal databases to determine if your email has been found in any leaks. Say for example that you had signed up to some random website and then that website had a data breach. Maybe some emails were leaked and passwords. What happens with that information is that it is usually sold off to hackers and malicious websites who then take advantage of your accounts to steal your money/passcodes. This website will check for you when if at all your email was associated with any data breaches. Overall I have found it VERY helpful in securing my data.

https://tosdr.org/en This website here is a database of most of the large social networking sites and reads through the incredibly lengthy terms of service that no one ever reads, and summarizes the relevant points that you are concerned with. Before signing up to a new app, check it though this website and read through the ratings and see the specific rights and information that you are signing away upon account creation.

Digital visitors on the other hand, are often unversed in the dangers and aren’t as educated in the safe ways to navigate online platforms to not only get the information they are seeking, but to do so in a safe way.

Theories of personalized learning

Constructivist Perspective

http://beta.edtechpolicy.org/AAASGW/Session2/const_inquiry_paper.pdf

Personalized learning is critical to addressing the unique needs of each individual person. The constructivist perspective addresses the idea that learning is a process that requires attending to the learner. There is no one size fits all, and this theory highlights the need for individualized methods that involve the learner in an active role.

Self-Directed Learning

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9309162/

Self-directed learning theory is similar and complementary to the constructivist perspective, where not only is the focus on the learner, but that the learner is the primary source of knowledge seeking. The learner is in an active role and entirely in the drivers seat.

My Take

These two theories are each very helpful in understanding how we as human being acquire knowledge. I know in specifically my experience, the more something is interesting to me, the more I seek knowledge about it. Self directed learning is when you are in the drivers seat and your instructor is in the passenger seat, meanwhile constructivist learning from my understanding is when the teacher is in the drivers seat, however is constantly attending to you and your specific needs. The metaphor falls apart there however these two strategies can be entirely complementary and related to each other.

Both of these theories share a common thread – the focus is on the learner. This is something I wish my elementary and high school teacher knew. Especially as someone who is neurodivergent, my classroom experience outside of college/university was very very poor and was mush more teacher focus and lesson focused over a student focus.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve wrote! I am tired so I’m going to go home and play some video games now. Thanks for reading!

-Jason