Who Am I, Digitally?

The question of "Who am I?" or, more precisely, "Who am I, digitally?" becomes a fundamental question for anyone who engages in virtual spaces.

By Ashley Breton Posted: April 2021 Last updated: July 2022

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Image taken from Wix.com

Today, we live in a hyper-connected world. Social media, online communities, and virtual interactions have entered every part of contemporary life. Technology is changing so rapidly that we have not had the time to think about our relationship with it and how it shapes our identity. The question of "Who am I?" or, more precisely, "Who am I, digitally?" becomes a fundamental question to ponder for anyone who engages in virtual spaces. But, it wasn't until I embarked on this learning journey with Royal Roads University (RRU) that the impact of my digital practices entered my consciousness. Admittedly, I knew nothing about digital identity or digital presence (DIDP), let alone thought about creating and cultivating one responsibly.

According to Oliver Ertzscheid (2016), a digital identity is "an online persona or collection of traces… that are consciously or unconsciously left behind" (Ertzscheid, 2016, as cited in Breton, 2021). It is akin to how your name and your photo ID make up your identity in the physical world. But, our online identity goes beyond this to include social media activity, location, search history, and digital photos and videos — essentially, anything on the Internet that can link to our name.

Whether or not we are intentionally curating our identity in the digital world, it is not always the version we want to present (Boyd, 2010). At the start of this course, I had little digital presence — I had a profile on Facebook and LinkedIn, but no Twitter account and no personal blog or website. If you Googled "Ashley Breton," you would likely find somewhat undesirable information about other people who share my name.

At this stage, I was unaware of the importance of having a credible online persona. I saw my lack of online presence as a good thing. Fast forward to today, I am actively cultivating an online persona I can be proud of, and developing a network I can learn from and collaborate with.

So, who or what is responsible for this shift? Did my digital practices change, or did I change? The answer is both. My digital footprint is now intentional, and along the way, I have collected pearls of wisdom that have changed my beliefs and altered previous assumptions about what it means to be open online, digital identity cultivation, and the power of social networks.

Image taken from Wix.com

Adopting New Assumptions and Beliefs

My first course assignment in the Master of Arts in Learning and Technology (MALAT) program was to investigate my digital identity and presence and formulate a plan to create a persona based on how I want to be perceived online. The process of researching and writing my Digital Identity and Digital Presence (DIDP) plan provided me with the valuable opportunity to learn about my digital footprint and formulate a strategy to alter the haphazard path I was on. Immediately, I was inspired by the idea of "open identity" presented by Cathrine Cronin in her 2017 virtual symposium webinar hosted by Royal Roads.

Cronin (2017) noted that we are in a continuous negotiation of openness as educators, as we question how much we are comfortable revealing in these online spaces. I began to reflect on my core values. I felt strongly about being transparent in my practice, but why not online? Why did I use social media platforms, like Facebook, with my friends, but not with my students?

Indeed, my Facebook posts and pictures were not in alignment with my offline professional persona. Upon introspection, I became aware of a long-held belief that teachers should separate their personal and professional selves to maintain authority and credibility. I assumed all teachers practiced strict digital presence management; therefore, so should I. Unbeknownst to me, this belief was influencing my digital practices, as I unconsciously compartmentalized my social media activities. It became clear at this point that there remained a palpable division between who I was at school and the identity I inhabited online.

With my DIDP plan in hand, I was determined to change this. But first, I needed to do some more thinking. Was I going to develop a new identity? Strengthen an existing one? Or maybe integrate existing identities across multiple settings and contexts?

Image taken from Wix.com

Re-shaping My Digital Identity

The idea of identity is both curious and complex. Who I am, reflects how I see myself and how others see me, both of which are relevant when it comes to digital identity and presence. As our digital footprint essentially paints a portrait of who we are, an image that is probably more public than we assume, it should resemble who we are offline. However, if we are not willing to manage our digital presence, we allow search engines to create it for us (Campbell, 2009). We all need to be conscious of this, especially given how much of our lives are now spent online.

As part of my DIDP plan, I merged my existing social identity with my faintly existing professional identity to establish one unified open identity that reflects the authentic me. I felt confident with my social identity online, but developing my identity as a professional was harder.

Questions began to stir as I contemplated my existing identities. Could I let my personality shine online while keeping it professional? Was it okay for me to voice my opinions on Facebook about issues in my field? Who would I digitally become straddling these two spheres? It seemed impossible for both to co-exist simultaneously, but my perspective on digital compartmentalization had changed — I no longer saw value in differentiating my social networks by content type and audience. I had to choose, and my professional identity seemed more important.

Image taken from Wix.com

Engaging with Social Networks

With a clear plan to establish my digital identity as a professional, I began to look at different social networks and other online spaces to expand my presence. Social networks are groups of technologies, such as Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, and LinkedIn, which offer people opportunities to interact with one another in a multitude of ways (Dron & Anderson, 2014).

According to Dron & Anderson (2014), it is increasingly important to leverage digital networks to support our various pursuits. For example, using a platform like Twitter offers numerous affordances for professional network interactions (Boyd, 2010). While a WordPress blog might provide a space for learning, as one can explore and share compelling ideas with the virtual world.

In both cases, the interactions between user and audience result in the shaping of online identities (Dron & Anderson, 2014). But which technologies would I use to curate my DIDP? And, how would I leverage these channels to position myself online? The following is a list of technologies and an explanation of why and how I now use them.

1. WordPress blog — Provided by the MALAT program, is a space for formal learning. I planned to commit most of my digital presence effort to my student blog. Not only because I am required to, but because of the possibility of tremendous visibility (Boyd, 2010) and the value of creating and sharing in a space that I own (Campbell, 2009).

2. Twitter — I selected Twitter because it enables broader distribution (Boyd, 2010). Many professionals and experts use it to connect, collaborate, and share their research and work "by enhancing who can access the real-time event or widening access to reproductions of the moment" (p. 8).

3. LinkedIn — I chose to maintain my LinkedIn profile because of its "searchability" (Boyd, 2010, p. 9). As the largest professional network platform on the Web, when my name is put into a search engine like Google, I have a better chance of appearing on the first page in search results. This allows me to create a solid professional digital identity that can help open doors to opportunities and networks that I may not have been aware of.

4. Facebook — I was already using Facebook for social activity, so to further contribute to the cultivation of my professional persona, I would use this space with a commitment to share and connect with a larger community of professionals. This space provides me with the affordance of replicability (Boyd, 2010), which allows me to re-share information from other sites. For instance, I can attach links to my blog posts or the posts of others, which can increase the visibility of my work and support the work of others.

5. Slack — The RRU MALAT chat not only provides our cohort with a tool to collaborate and communicate, but it grants us the ability to "capture moments and make them persistent" (Boyd, 2010, p. 7). For example, writing messages and sharing pictures or screenshots allows our cohort to create a centralized record of information that we can learn from. In addition, this membership has also offered me a new way to be an active online participant.

6. Whatsapp - I formed a study group with several peers who meet once a week to share information and support. Before this course, I used social networks as tools to socialize, send texts, share pictures and stay connected with family and friends. But I learned that its potential is much more than that; it is a tool for "formal and informal learning" (Dron & Anderson, 2014, p. 7).

These tools allow us to access and explore diverse content, perspectives, and ideas in their various modes, all of which are prerequisites for learning and knowledge (Dron & Anderson, 2014). This is especially important today, as many people tend to read what they want to read, see what they want to see, and do what they want to do. And, although exploring content that supports your ideas is important, from this experience I learned it is even more important to explore those that do not.

Image taken from Wix.com

Final Thoughts

My MALAT experience has been a unique journey that has challenged me to question what I believe to be true. I came into this program as an "expert" in English language education. My profession's perspectives have come from lived experience working in that sector for over a decade. Despite having left teaching behind, I still had enthusiasm for the subject. However, most of everything I read, listened to or watched aligned with what I already knew. Completely novel ideas seldom surfaced; therefore, I never had any real reason to question anything. Then, I enrolled in the MALAT program at RRU.

Having read numerous articles and blog posts about education and technology, I realize the advantages of the Internet come at a price (Beetham, 2019; Hodson, 2018; Rheingold, 2010, Schryver, 2013; Stewart, 2019). Though I am more aware of the potential adverse effects of having a more substantial online presence, they are not enough to outweigh the positive. Through this DIDP plan assignment, I have become a more connected educator. And, while I realize this will continue to take work, I have already experienced some enormous benefits.

By sharing more of myself online, I have connected with members of my cohort, joined online communities with individuals who share the same interests and passions as I do, and received an opportunity to work with a trailblazer in the English language OER world. But, most importantly, my experience cultivating a more robust digital identity has allowed me to grow and develop as a person.

Like many online users, I was utterly oblivious to the presence I had established and the identity I had cultivated online. Thanks to the readings, activities, and discussions throughout this MALAT program, I have collected pearls of wisdom that have challenged my beliefs and assumptions about what it means to be open, who I should be online, and the strong influence of the networks I engage with.

Now, reaching the end of my MALAT journey, I see my digital self and the world around me through a more critical lens, which has allowed me to better understand some of the challenges I faced throughout this assignment. I implemented what I learned, expanded my tools and resources, and made some valuable connections along the way. So now, to revisit the question I posed at the beginning of this reflection, "Who am I, digitally?" My answer is "I am who I have allowed myself to become."

References

Beetham, H. (2019, April 10). Trouble with critical: reframing critical digital literacies as real-world interventions. [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://oer19.oerconf.org/sessions/trouble-with

Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, p. 39-58.

Campbell, G. (2009). A personal cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review, 44(5), p. 58-59.

Cronin, C. (2017, April, 20). Choosing open. [Webinar]. Royal Roads University. Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://malat-coursesite.royalroads.ca/lrnt521/catherine-cr onin-choosing-open/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1623519735904000&usg=AOvVaw2g _Fc_wWKb_3vNCFty7oI0

Dron, J., & Anderson, T. (2014). Teaching Crowds. Athabasca University Press. Chapters 1-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781927356807.01

Ertzscheid, O. (2016) as cited in Breton, A. (2021, April 26). Digital identity and digital presence plan (DPDIP): Curating my digital presence and identity as an academic. [Blog]. WordPress. Retrieved from: https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0205/digital-identity-and-digital-presence-plan-d pdip-curating-my-digital-presence-and-identity-as-an-academic/

Hodson, J. (2018, April 16). Navigating a dangerous landscape: The mindful use of social media for education in the age of propaganda. [Webinar]. Royal Roads University. Retrieved from: https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/e16f96d22ad14deeae1326cfa2b0 ba81?platform=hootsuite

Rheingold, H. (2010). Attention and other 21st-century social media literacies. Educause Review, 45(5).

Schryver, K. (2013, February 5). Who are you online? Considering issues of web identity. [Blog]. The New York Times blogs. Retrieved from: https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/guest-post-who-are-you-online-considerin g-issues-of-web-identity/

Stewart, B., Phipps, L., & Cormier, D. (2019, April 10). The participatory open: Can we build a pro-social, pro-societal web? [Video]. YouTube. https://oer19.oerconf.org/sessions/the-participatory-open-can-we-build-a-pro-social-pro-societal-web-o-127