Gaining Digital Confidence: Reflective Blog Post

As I look back at the semester, I realize how far I've come as a digital citizen. I think the most important thing I've learned this semester is this: "I CAN." I can be in control of my education; I can direct my own learning; I can be current and knowledgeable about what is going on in the world; I can keep up with the digital age, and I can contribute to the world around me now in meaningful ways. This is what I call "digital confidence". I have developed digital confidence throughout this semester, and I feel empowered. Digital Civilization was much more than a class for me; it was a paradigm shift.

I must admit, the style  of the class still gets me. I thrive on positive feedback on how I am doing in the class, facilitated by test scores and grades throughout the semester. I'm really not ready to have all my classes run the way this one was. Still, there are some incredible things that I have gained through this class that could not have been gained any other way. (This image is Creative Commons Licensed by Adalberto.H.Vega.)

It was amazing to me that in the first half of the semester, each of the groups came through with really creative, awesome presentations to teach the class. I was quite impressed. It was then that I first noticed a change in myself. We were not given a grading rubric, nor were we even given a visible "grade" after our presentation. Still, I was motivated to create a quality product, despite the lack of a tangible grade attached. I fully participated, and sometimes acted as a leader in my groups. I felt driven because I felt responsible to teach the class.

The second half of the semester was even more incredible to me. It seemed like everyone wanted to do their part, and help where they could, for the sake of the project. It did take some grades to motivate us. The first release was a bit of a shocker to everyone... After that, however, I was excited about our project simply because we were doing something that would meaningfully contribute to our school, and hopefully our society. I felt a great connection and investment in our eBook, such that I felt sad and disappointed when we realized we would not get it finished in time to publish it by the end of the semester. This experience was not a bad one, though. It taught me other lessons in itself: accountability and team work. I realized that I could have done more to make it happen--there is always more that could be done. Still, it also depends the group, and everyone willing to do their part. I am glad that our eBook will live on, since some of the students will be finishing it. I am planning on working with my group to get together the Library Research 2.0 video and lesson plan after the semester ends.

Through the course of this semester, I have become both digitally savvy, and digitally responsible: from learning about TED Talks and Social Bookmarking websites, to using Creative Commons-licensed works.

Following is a list of the learning outcomes for the class, along with links to demonstrate my learning and development in these areas.

 History

 I was assigned the 20th Century, and my book was Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. My book mostly covered the present era, but I used self-directed learning to discover more about the other centuries.

• Elephants and Globalization 
• Economic Globalization, Free Markets and the Growing Divide   
• Hero from the 19th Century: A Woman Called Moses  
• History of the Trans-Atlantic Cable

Core Concepts

• Control
• Can You Hack a Refrigerator? 
• I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT SOPA  
• Birth Control and Small Businesses
• Information
• Predicting Technology's Effect on Society  
• Presentation is Everything--Especially in the Digital World 
• The Truth About Alternative Energy 
• Openness
• The Definition of Open Science: What Went Wrong With Cold Fusion?
• Participation
• President Obama's Weekly Address 

Digital Literacy

• Consume
• Getting Started with Inquiry
• A Counterargument For Inquiry: Making our Project Stronger (A narrative of of my personal experience with "consuming")
• Connect
• A Proposed Tweethis (Using social proof to refine our Tweethis)
• Spreading the Word--Inviting People to Our Event 
•  Create
•  Inquiry: Consume (My portion of the eBook chapter)

Self-Directed Learning

• Federal Research Public Access Act (I stumbled on this article that I thought would be useful for the Openness group. Even though the internet was invented in the U.S., the WWW was invented by CERNS to share academic articles.)
•  Coding a Better Government

Collaboration

• My groups have used Google Hangout, Prezi, and Google Docs to collaborate, as well as email, texting, and Google+
• Information Group Presentation

Spreading the Word--Inviting People to Our Event

I was surprised that I didn't have to look far to find people to invite. I went back to my blog post I wrote for the bibliography/social graph for the Inquiry chapter in the eBook. Since most of my research and social graphing has revolved around libraries, most of these people have something to do with libraries and how the digital world is integrating with them. Here is a list of the people I invited, and why:

1. Jason Griffey:  He was named a "mover and shaker" of the library world by Library Journal in 2009. He gave a presentation at the VALA (Victorian Association for Library Automation) 2012 conference entitled "Libraries and the Post-PC Era", which just took place this February. I watched an encore of this presentation that was embedded into his blog, given at Perth, Australia. He is very interested in the integration of technology into the library world.
2. Brian Kelly: I read his blog post entitled, "Is Web Interoperable Being Led By Global Social Media Services?", and I thought he might be interested in our event. He talks about social media being used in conferences and, I mentioned that we are using Twitter for our question and answer session. I also noticed that he wrote a paper called Implementing a Holistic Approach to E-Learning Accessibility. Our whole course has been dedicated to studying the issues that have come up in our world society due to digital technology, and this paper covers the limitations E-learning has for those with disabilities.
3. Brad Matthies: he is the Head of Access Services at Butler University, and he did a presentation entitled: "The Academic Library's Role in Fostering Digital Citizenship", which is right up our ally. He also had a list of authored articles and presentations that have to do with integrating the digital into the library.
4. Simon Barron: he is the E-resources Coordinator at Durham University. On his Linkedin Profile, it listed his "Specialties" as follows: "Digital asset management, use of technology in libraries, digital libraries, Web 2.0, the Semantic Web, library advocacy."
5. Johann Van Wyk: he is an academic librarian at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. On his professional home page, he listed his "Interests" as being Library 2.0/Web 2.0, E-Research, and Social Media Tools, among others.
6. Tim O'Reilly:  he is the inventor of the term Web 2.0. He is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., which host several technology conferences on various topics. He is a supporter of open source and free software movements, and is the author of a number of books and articles about Web 2.0
7. Julie Still: She posted on Google+ about a conference called Library 2.0 (TEDx for Librarians), and she gave a presentation at this conference called, Librarians Use of Social Media Profile Photos. She is a reference librarian at Rutgers University.
8. Jessamyn West: She is the founder of librarian.net, a website in favor of getting a better image for the librarian profession. She was named a "mover and shaker" of the library world by Library Journal in 2002. Her presentation entitled Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and why it's no big deal, seriously has some great examples of how libraries have implemented Web 2.0 technologies into their services.
9. Steve Hargadon: He is very involved in Classroom 2.0 and Library 2.0. He is the author of "Educational Networking: The Important Role Web 2.0 Will Play in Education". His blog is entitled : "Educational Technology: Web 2.0, Educational Social Networking, Free and Open Source Software, and the Future of Education." (I was thinking, "Jackpot" as I read this.) He also has a website called "Web 2.0 Labs", which shows all the projects he has consulted.
10. Karen Coombs: She is the product manager for the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) Developer Network. She was named a "mover and shaker" of the library world, and was instrumental in developing "Five Weeks to a Social Library", which is a free online course about implementing social software in libraries.
11. Tyler Mix: My husband, who is a Chemistry major at BYU, working on his Masters' degree. I invited him because I thought he would have some useful feedback, especially about the science presentation.

In addition to this, I went and made an announcement about the event to Dr. Adams' Communications 101 Mass Communication and Society class. I told them that we were presenting a TEDx-style event about how we can become better digital citizens in the digital world. There are about 100 students in that class.

I was joyfully surprised that I received responses from four people plus my husband. The four said that they were unable to attend live, but that they would be sure to watch the recording. I found out that Steve Hargadon has two daughters who go to BYU, and he was very interested in learning more about our class, so I sent him the link for the description of it. My husband came, in person, to our event.

It was a learning experience to write to these people, and it was an example in social proofing itself. I received emails from two of the people before I finished inviting the rest, and they were confused about what I was asking them to do. They didn't know what I wanted feedback on exactly, the format of the presentation, or the content. I was able to tweak my email invitation to be more clear, thanks to the feedback I received from them.

Overall, it was a great experience to invite these people, and I was surprised again by how easy it is to get in contact with people interested in the same topics.