Mapping My Digital Space

Source Via: GIPHY

Visitor vs. Resident of the Internet

Did you know that when  using internet tools we develop a digital space? Within this digital space, we can be either a digital visitor or a digital resident.The terms digital visitor and digital resident were developed by the author David White, who wanted to describe how people interacted with digital spaces. In a video called "Visitors and Residents Mapping Activity," White explains that a digital visitor is someone accessing the internet for a specific task, such as a Google Search. When a person googles something, they are probably brought down to a list of links related to their search. The initial information goes away, not leaving a trace behind. Contrary to this, would be a digital resident who leave a trace behind of his or her work, as some like to refer to a "footprint." A digital resident would be a person posting on social media or joining an online discussion.

While a person can be either a digital resident or a digital visitor, they can also a combination of both. These digital spaces would be based on the online tools, resources, media and social networks that people use in their daily lives.

In order to determine whether one is a digital visitor, a digital resident or a combination of both, White provided a mapping activity that broke down the digital spaces into four quadrants. These quadrants were based on personal and professional areas, as well as interests, preferences and habits of digital spaces. Please refer to the example of  my digital space map in the following section.

Mapping my Digital Space

Image Source: Google Search

Mapping my Digital Space was such a fun an interesting task! At first, I had no idea of where to start. So, I went ahead and pulled my iPhone to see the apps I had downloaded. Voila!! I discovered that I had many apps and that not all fell under the same category. I thought about which apps I used more often, and whether I used them for personal or professional interests.

In my discovery, I realized that I had too many apps on the personal side, and not that many on the professional side. This observation began to worry me, but I then saw it more as a learning experience, rather than on something I was doing right or wrong. I also realized that since my profession requires doing research, analyzing and recording data, I had some tools that perhaps for some people might fall more on the visitor side. For instance, SchoolPace, which is a reading assessment and data tool offered by the American Reading Company (ARC). This is an internet tool I often  have to refer to by checking daily or weekly data, and then leaving notes for teachers.

My hope is to begin developing more tools on the professional quadrants and use this amazing activity to get to know my teachers, as well as students. Hope you also find it useful. Thank you!

References:

David White, 2011. "Visitors and Resdents." Digital-Learning-Culture at http://daveowhite.com/

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David White 2013. "Visitors and Residents Mapping Activity." Youtube Video at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IMObcyKbo&feature=youtu.be&t=11m55s

Robert Schuetz, 2016. "Mapping our Pangea: Visitors and Residents." Knocking the Arrow, at https://www.rtschuetz.net/2016/02/mapping-our-pangea.html

Robert Schuetz, 2016. "Visitors and Residents; Mapping our Digital Learning Places." IETC V and R Google Slide Presentation at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1H7t_QxeWXhltcXahy5lETY-nHD-zOQdaW07tlK-_mK4/edit#slide=id.g18c752de78_3_26