Digital Me

by Sheri on Flickr

The #digciz twitter conversation buzzes with ideas. I can’t keep up with the DigCiz Schedule. I still need to watch the dialogue at Vialogues with Maha Bali and Kate Bowles.

But I was able to read Aaron Davis’s wonderful reflection “The Risk of Hospitality.” I understood the idea of online context, of drawing lines ourselves and crossing over others’ lines, of belonging to Tribes or not [always a nudge by Sarah NomadWarMachine], and our mapped “digital me.”

Aaron said our challenge is

“knowing when to take your shoes off at the door and apologizing if you happen to forget.”

That’s the openness, the welcoming, the daring to step in, and the hospitable lines that we may not explicitly state, understand, or bring considered thought about their affect on others.

I am always drawn back to the idea of identity and agency. Each person’s actions are his/her own. We can invite, we can ignore, but each has his/her own choice. Our response of invitation or lack of invitation is, obviously, our choice.

I have found over and over again that William Glasser’s Choice Theory holds true. I choose my response and the information I accept and I choose the kind of response and information I extend towards others. I can only truly change me.

I have a vision of the world that is welcoming, fair, open, curious, and pleasant. I can share my vision and welcome others into that vision. I choose where I belong — lurking, learning, cooperating, collaborating, or not.

It seems I hold with a line that  Stephen Downes put it in his blog, “What Kind of (Digital) Citizen?”

base society on voluntary cooperation

We will not ever be able to impose guidelines for digital citizenship. I’m thinking we can provide vision and information for digital leadership, and ask:

What is your perfect world?

How do you choose to act to create that world?

Does some of your world fit with mine?

Are we making the world better for all [my vision]?

To me, we need a shared vision, and a voluntary cooperation to create it, with each of us, as our own Digital Me. Each Digital Me chooses to lead his/her life and vision when s/he chooses to belong to that shared vision. Sometimes the choice is to be a part of the world, and sometimes the choice is to be alone. And sometimes I must wait in someone else’s vision that doesn’t fit mine — and I can choose to be hospitable about it; I don’t need to “rain on someone’s parade.” Agency of choice and invitation: hospitality.

Each moment I ask, “Which will I choose?”

Be sure to check out the #digciz hashtag and schedule.

I also hope to read:

Social Leadia:

Moving Students from Digital Citizenship

to Digital Leadership

by Jennifer Casa-Todd