The octopus's garden of digital literacy

The term digital literacy per se is brand new to me. As an engineer, researcher and teacher, the computer and the Internet have been an integral part of my professional life, and in the last decade also of my personal life. The computer was the tool to use to do the number crunching, to make presentations, write articles, make lecture slides and other teaching material, access the Internet to obtain information, read and send emails, read new from newsgroups, and occasionally "put" or get files via FTP. I wasn't one for writing opinions or jokes that were shared in various newsgroups, but I did read them. Yet I never bumped into the term digital literacy.

Although this digital technology has developed and become user-friendly, not much has changed in how I use it professionally. So, on the visitor–resident axis (David White, 2014), I'd place myself quite far down the visitor axis. Yes, without a doubt, professionally I've been a digital visitor all these years. I have left no social trace of myself on the Internet. Wait a minute; do conference and journal articles, technical reports, theses, or code snippets that are published online count as social trace? Aren't they—if I stretch the meaning of the word somewhat—blogs of sorts, but without the possibility of getting comments from readers on the same website as the published work resides? One does get comments and feedback on the formal papers one publishes, with a larger delay than with an online blog.

I got myself a Facebook account some years ago through which I've been in touch mainly with childhood friends who are now scattered around the world. Here I've been more of a resident. Until now, I haven't give much thought to how I use the Internet, except that I'm concerned about my privacy online; someone (read Big Data) tracks what I do and might (actually, they will) exploit this information, or some malicious person or group might steal my identity online wreaking havoc in my real, physical life. Other than bombarding people with advertisements and placing them in a filter bubbles (Sara Mörtsell, 2017), I presume even Big Data isn't quite sure what they're going to do with all that information, but I'm sure they'll think of lots of things in time. I'm not the only one with these concerns (Eva Henje Blom, 2017). Should I be afraid? Perhaps, but not to the point of avoiding the Internet. That would be like avoiding eating chocolate because of the harm it might cause to my health.

This, I guess, is where ONL comes in. In these past two weeks I've learnt a lot: I've acquainted myself with what digital literacy is (I've just scratched the surface). It turns out to be a garden of different skills, mindsets, attitudes, and knowledge (Europass: digital competences). I've begun thinking about what I do online as a private individual and in a professional context. And this is a start. This is just the beginning of my journey down digital boulevard. Working and collaborating online in my PBL group (group 8) has been eye-opening in many ways and, more importantly, fun. I've learnt to use new software that, by myself, I'd probably never had got to know, let alone use.

I'm excited. I'm less afraid of leaving a digital social footprint, and I think I'm better aware of the distinction between the data gathered by Big Data and digital social footprint. I want to explore this digital garden, use it to my advantage, and judiciously avoid the digital nettle.


References

David White (2014). Visitors and residents (part 1). Video clip. Accessesed on 6.3.2017.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOG3iThmRI&feature=youtu.be

Sara Mörtsell (2017). Digital litercies. Webinar.

Eva Henje Blom (2017). My first blog - not convinced...  https://henjeblom.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/my-first-blog-not-convinced/

Europass: digital competences.  http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/resources/digital-competences

The start of a mystery tour

I've always wanted to be an electrical engineer since I was a little boy, and, to make a long story short, I graduated as one. Teaching was a profession I didn't want to get into, and as a university student I made up my mind that I would never be a teacher. However, life thought otherwise. Towards the end of my studies I joined the university as a summer trainee, and before I knew it, I was giving exercise classes to freshmen and second-year students of electrical engineering, and then learning about teaching and how one learns. Soon I was teaching my own courses adapting and applying the new ideas I'd picked up. I've built lots of little electronic gadgets as a hobby, a lot of them, funnily enough, to demonstrate electrical phenomena in the classroom.

My interest in teaching grew immensely. I learned about PBL, I was very excited about the approach, and so together with a couple of colleagues, I designed two PBL courses covering basic circuit analysis. The mathematics required in the subject posed quite a challenge in the course design. Building and developing the course was hard, often frustrating, but all in all it was fun. The course itself turned out to be very thrilling. We did this for several years and we even published the results of a little study we made on our experiment [1]. This resource-consuming experiment ended when we ran out of funding and human-power. All the effort I put in and the tricks I tried to get students to learn have been in the classroom—keeping things as simple as possible, little gadgets and circuit simulations to arouse interest, group discussions, and so on—where we've all been present in the same physical space.

My opinion on remote learning over the Internet is prejudiced, perhaps because of the burden of having to acquaint myself with new software, or perhaps because communication via a screen is so limited and hence difficult, or may be simply because it's so different from classroom teaching. I've used Skype to teach a friend on the other side of the world, and I don't know how well I've managed to communicate, but I'm sure that not as well as if we'd shared the same physical space. This experience was not as satisfying as in the classroom.

So, where am I going with this write-up? I have often been out of my comfort zone before when teaching or studying, but I feel that I've never been as far out as I am now: this is the first time I'm writing a blog, the first time I'm attending an online course, the first time that all the tools I'm using are new. I'm apprehensive about publishing a public blog reflecting my learning experience. After my unnecessary initial anxiousness about getting the technology to work, my first impression of the webinar on Tuesday the 13th, was, "Wow! So many people from all over the world connected, and this works!" A few minutes into the webinar, I noticed I was distracted by the continuous stream of comments on the chat and soon after by the slides—shown at a slow pace, thank goodness. Where should I focus my attention, on the instructors and what they are saying in the video, on the slides, or on the comments in the chat? I didn't even notice that a question was directed to me there. (My colleague brought this to my notice shortly, and I then quickly responded.) I clearly have a lot to learn. I'm simultaneously apprehensive and excited, just as one is at the beginning of a journey to a strange new land. What comforts me is the enthusiasm of the participants in this course, who in all probability are novices just like me on this journey, which hints that I may be at the start of a magical mystery tour. I hope it is.

Reference

1. Costa, L.R.J, Honkala, M. & Lehtovuori A. "Applying the problem-based learning approach to teach elementary circuit analysis," IEEE Transactions on Education, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Feb. 2007. DOI: 10.1109/TE.2006.886455