Digital Identity and Portfolios
Posted on October 14, 2008
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I was pointed to this by Brad Kzolek well before it hit my RSS reader … a piece by the always engaging Stephen Downes titled, “My Digital Identity” shares insights into some of the core issues with identity and reflection online. What I love about this piece is that Stephen really explores some of my own burning questions as they relate to how we attempt to represent ourselves online. This is an article that we’d like to know what you think about … there is much here that speaks to quite a bit of the work we are doing in ETS. Your thoughts (both as comments or emails directly to me) are both welcomed and encouraged.
Related Resources
- Jan 10 2007: Cultural Commonwealth (0)
- Oct 08 2006: Podcast Article from Scranton (0)
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2 Responses to “Digital Identity and Portfolios”
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Even though I enjoy Descartes and Heidegger, I’m getting somewhat lost in Downes’ writing style. Are we talking about e-portfolios as a tool for someone to accurately assess someone else’s current capabilities and status or are we talking about e-portfolios as a tool for someone to control what information someone else gets to use when assessing their current capabilities and status? I don’t think a tool can be both. Which are we advocating for?
It is a good question and I am banging my head against the wall thinking about the same kind of things. I am coming at this from the notion of identity and not just “portfolio” per se. I think Downes is looking at this in a more continuous/fluid way — we build pieces of ourselves across the web and have not worked hard to unite these pieces into a picture. Maybe there is no need to, but something tells me that if we could assemble the pieces into a whole (or something similar to that notion) we’d be able to better reflect on our movement through time and to represent our current selves with a single snapshot. To me, a successful portfolio has more to do with ongoing descriptions of current happenings and reflections on the meanings from these experiences. I am less interested in an enhanced resume and more interested in documenting growth. Maybe I am out in left field on this one.
And I know I didn’t answer the question.