This is a response to a point expressed by White (2014), and namely his implicit encouragement for students to develop a more active professional persona at the resident-institutional quadrant (“institutional residents”), that is to develop an active digital identity, contributing with contents published online and in social media.
But is it really desirable for teachers to encourage students to do so?
Learning environments should be, indeed, learning environments, where learning happens only through trial and error, formulating and reformulating, developing and even changing ideas. Encouraging students (especially at the beginning of their educational paths) to become an online public persona would, in my opinion, hinder their learning instead of fostering it. It would force them to go public with opinions and ideas that are necessarily half-baked, which would of course limit their freedom of expression and their freedom to make mistakes. A learning environment is, after all, by definition “learn-in-progress”, and would make no sense, and actually backfire, to pretend it is not.
References
White, D. (2014, March 10). Visitors and Residents: Credibility [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/kO569eknM6U