Monday, October 10, 2011

Visitor or Resident...

'Tourist sign Mt Dora, Florida' photo (c) 2006, Sheila Scarborough - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
  After our discussion last week in class, as well as the video that we watched Visitor or Resident, I would have to say that right now I am definitely more of a visitor in my current state of my life. The past two years I have switched between being a visitor and being a resident. During my undergrad schooling I was definitely a resident. I was very involved in my online being. I had multiple social websites, many online tools and completed many of my classwork all online. I was connected daily(usually hourly) and definitely had a presence online. This past spring I decided to close all my accounts and relied on the Internet for basic information and to randomly pay bills that I forgot about. I decided on closing all my sites because I felt that Internet started to take away from other more important things in life. I think this is when I switched from being a visitor to a resident. I am trying to get back into the mindset of a resident...it's proving very hard. It is taking a lot of perseverance. It may be harder than me trying to stick to a workout. I am trying to find time to make my presence visible online so I can become a resident for my development as an educator. Hopefully I will make it to resident status in a way that I can still be present in my online PLN and still enjoy my current lifestyle.

3 comments:

  1. I think that it's important to have a balance between your online and offline life, just as it is between your work and home life. I think that maybe you could even do what the guy in the video suggested and have your private life offline and your professional life online. Or devote a certain amount of time a day to your online professional network and leave the rest for whatever else is going on in your life.

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  2. I like your self-analysis of your transition back and forth between tourist and resident status. I agree that we use the internet for different purposes at different stages of our lives.

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  3. Hi Christina,

    I too have reduced my online time because I wanted to get back to being outdoors, which is one of my passions. I do feel that I could be considered a resident because I am fascinated with technology and love the concept of incorporating technology into the classrooms, but I truly was not a resident in the sense of being completely open and not private. Now after watching the video, I understand the concept of resident vs. visitor. I think because I used tools online for my personal benefit and didn't leave that "footprint" is why I would say I'm a visitor. Even when we started this class, my previous blogs were only open for those who I chose to see! It's kind of weird to know that now I'm starting to leave that footprint behind and I'm no longer "private" (except for facebook!) haha

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