I began this assignment by reading Gardner Campbell’s essay A Personal Infrastructure. I immediately watched the presentation afterwards, and then listened to the dialogue with #ds106.

I appreciated Campbell’s views on the fact that digital storytelling can help students create a digital identity that appropriately addresses the changes in technology around us. For example, Campbell suggests that student ought to create their own domain and website as opposed to building a digital identity through a server mask that the school creates with a folder. However, I thought that that assumption slightly undermined our generation’s ability with computers. Since age 13, I began coding in HTML, PHP, Visual Basic, C++, and ASM shell coding. When I began, the way that you would learn is to build connections with peers in computer programming and create an alias and an identity. While the vehicle for identity has changed (to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.), the concept has still been around. I appreciate his outlook on digital communication though, because it will undoubtedly become an essential part of every day interaction in future years. I think the overall point of the essay was to encourage teachers to have students embrace the digital internet on their own (sort of like swimming for the first time) but to do so with a little support from the professor (sort of like a lifeguard with swimming). I think it’s a good point for the people who haven’t actually had that experience.

After watching the video, I gained a better understanding of the goal for a digital storytelling course. I like Campbell’s Shakespeare reference. I especially like how he compares the current intellectual expansion through digital communication to the intellectual growth in the Renaissance period. Really, I see the overall point being that technology affects communication and technology is constantly changing. And that by having professors encourage understanding of technological changes, students can learn to adapt to those changes. I like his reference to a “digital facelift” in the sense that the idea was that to digitalizes something will gift it new effects.

I also noticed a pretty interesting question about structural resistance. I wonder if the future generations who are accustomed to technology will experience a resistance in learning when facing in-class only lectures?

Lastly, I listened to the Gardner Campbell audio that was put up on the web from last night’s conversation with him. I finally understand the importance that is being placed on a “digital identity.” After listening to this, I see that a digital identity can be just as real as a physical identity. People of all ages and all backgrounds can create a new, or extended, identity that reaches out to other identities created…and can capture the stories of our lives in a new form, sort of a like a “journal or a diary.” So, now I’m interested to see how this course will teach me how critical these digital identities can be.