Reflection on topic 1

My presence in the digital world so far is one rather disparate. In my private sphere I use social media on and off, mostly as a spectator. Professionally I have a more constant presence with a more distinct focus on art, pedagogy, sustainability, communication and development of knowledge. From time to time my private digital engagement also involves art and action for sustainability, then I act more like a resident than a visitor. (White 2014) Mainly though, my private engagement is more like a visitor while my professional engagement is more like a resident. When it comes to the subjects that makes me as a private person go more towards being a resident, the need for separating my personal and professional engagement decrease. What could this mean for the future? I think that this blog might work as a connection between the personal and professional, linked by the ambiguous digital world. The way Belshaw (2011) use ambiguity as a notion for researching digital literacies is useful in more than one way to further explore what the digital reality might means for learning and teaching. Ambiguity is something that Belshaw (a.a.) stresses is preferable to accept and use. For me it stands out as a possible way to consider diversity as an asset and to emphasize the complexity of the digital as well as the analogue world. When it comes to learning and knowledge-making in general, and specifically regarding sustainability and interculturality ambiguity is a notion fruitful or even crucial to engage in. 

The notion ‘digital native/immigrant’ Belshaw (2011) is one of humans many attempts to divide the world in order to assort and find order. Dichotomy itself is incompatible with the ambiguous digital world as well as the analogue. To not consider borders or dividing lines as constant, but instead have an explorative and material-discursive approach towards how borders are being produced in an intra-active motion. (Barad2007 s.93) 

To try out alternative ways to shape learning for sustainable development can contribute to innovations and new ideas. It is the wide, interdisciplinary, intercultural and transdisciplinary qualities that makes sustainable development a possible notion through which we can find common contact surfaces between institutions and new possible areas of collaboration can be discovered. (Barth 2015 s.118).

This will be interesting to further investigate in this forum. In what way may the digital possibilities for intercultural and transdisciplinary collaboration effect the way we think about sustainability? Furthermore; how can the ambiguous qualities of art challenge digital literacies and our ability of change needed for sustainability?

References

Barad, Karen Michelle (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press

Barth, Matthias (2015). Implementing sustainability in higher education: learning in an age of transformation. Abingdon: Routledge

Belshaw Douglas A.J (2011). What is ‘digital literacy’? A thesis submitted in 2011 to the Department of Education at Durham University