Reflections about Digital Age Learning.

Okay so we're here Aarav, but why are you reflecting about these topics anyways?

Well why not? It's fun to look back at all the things you've learned so far. Besides it's an excuse for me to write.

Whatever you say...

Digital Age Learning was the first topic we covered as part of our online portion for ITLI102, but before we get into that, I wanna talk about our introduction to digital literacy, our first online class.

Our first online class acted as a sort of, prologue to what we could expect to see from each of the 'chapters' of digital literacy. The professor introduced the course itself, the topics we could expect to see, and then we went in for a fun activity where we had to introduce ourselves through a design tool of our choosing. I chose Google Slides because of how convenient it was to use for this case, just up and create a new slide deck and with a few easy customisations I had a cute introductory slide about myself. Overall I enjoyed the introduction itself and that small activity had me pumped for the rest of the day.

Circling back around to the first chapter of our course, "Digital Age Learning", I learned about what it actually means to be a learner in the digital age. The convenience I have when it comes to accessing information. I have hundreds of thousands of sources available to me a few keystrokes and clicks away, and it isn't just textual information or academic papers, millions of blogs, videos, audio pieces and more are just there for me to find.

If it wasn't for the internet and the digital age that we're in, I don't think I'd be able to talk about philosophy the way I do today, or have really obscure knowledge about niche things, like how the Irish postal code system works.

We also learned about the differences between traditional literacy and digital literacy. While I can see the difference in the two. I think a lot of the ideas from "traditional literacy" also apply themselves to digital literacy. The skills to be able to critically think and reason about a particular piece of media is something that you could apply to both sides of the coin.

Of course there's things to be said about fake news and generated content in today's age. I think where digital literacy extends traditional literacy is in gaining the ability to make out how things have changed in today's age. Deepfake content, fake news designed to generate outrage are all things that have come up as part of entering a digital age, and it's on us to sort of be able to figure out where to draw the line between actual content and fake one.

The closing topic for this chapter was about "Knowing Thyself", which is an interesting way to put this topic forward. It referred to how we should take time to reflect inwards and figure out where we stand and what our learning style is. I took the time to do this, and I think I'm happy with the ideas I've figured out.

For starters, I like to learn about everything. I mean everything, as of writing this I have papers about Victorian era city planning and a book about political cults on my computer. I think the best way to engage with topics you want to know more about is to figure out whatever media is out there about the topic, sometimes it will be journal papers, sometimes it might actually be YouTube videos. Go through these pieces of media on whatever platform you're comfortable on and then actually think about whatever you're seeing. Once you've done that, there's no stopping you.

I think to end this little chapter, I'd say I was looking forward to seeing whatever was to come next.