My digital identity

I've had a computer since 1989. First it was all about playing but after a few year I got interested in programming. First I wrote my own games, though to be fair, they were never that great. However, I learnt the basics of programming, which would prove quite useful later. When I started university I learnt about Linux and I started scripting different tools, and setting up my own web page. A couple of years later I set up my own web and mail server on my Linux computer. I also coded my own photo server and an information server for storing notes, links, files, contacts and mails online.

Since I became lecturer at Luleå University of Technology in 2008, my focus has been on making the teaching, and administration thereof, more efficient. I'm examiner of a course, Physics 3, with about 500 students each year so automation is clearly desirable. Our learning platform at the time was Fronter but there was no good tool in Fronter for online exercises of engineering problems, so I set out to write my own. Thus were my system of Bonus Assignments born, Pettersson & Bolldén (2020, p 167). In 2014 I heard about Gamification (see e.g. Nah et al., 2014), where gaming elements are used to make education more captivating for the students. This suited me perfectly, since I love games myself. Since then I've made several gamification changes to the Bonus Assignments, introducing experience points, multiple levels, badges, gold coins and achievements. I also realised that an education "game" shouldn't try to compete against normal games. It's not fun but it's school-fun. Since the purpose of the game is in fact learning and the students know this, they don't play it just for the fun of it, but they can enjoy the learning more if there are gaming elements included.  

In the last couple of years, since we switched to Canvas as our learning platform, I've scripted a lot of automation software to improve and tweak the Canvas experience, Pettersson & Bolldén (2020, p 169). Some features include, automated deadlines, result reporting, taking presence at laboratories and peer-review distribution.

I consider myself to be digitally literate (Prensky 2001) in the true sense of the word. I can quite easily pick up any digital tool by trying it out or finding out the answer by searching for it. When I was younger, I loved trying out different software and exploring all the possibilities, comparing different tools with each other. This also often lead to me designing my own tools, combining the attractive elements that I found in other software. However, the effort required to spread and share these tools was mostly too much for me. 

Despite this, I have a fairly low social media presence. For example, I use Facebook messenger, but not really Facebook itself, except as an information repository. I also have a Twitter account that I don't use. :)

I have no wish for people to follow my every day life and I don't have the time to follow theirs. I prefer talking and socialising offline, though, to be fair, I don't do that overly much either. :)

References

Nah F.FH., Zeng Q., Telaprolu V.R., Ayyappa A.P., Eschenbrenner B. (2014) Gamification of Education: A Review of Literature. In: Nah F.FH. (eds) HCI in Business. HCIB 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8527. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07293-7_39

Pettersson, L., & Bolldén, K. (Eds.). (2020). Bidrag från 7:e utvecklingskonferensen för sveriges ingenjörsutbildningar. Presented at the 7:e utvecklingskonferensen för sveriges ingenjörsutbildningar, Luleå: Luleå tekniska universitet. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-79996

Prensky, Marc (2001). ”Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”. On the Horizon, MCB University Press, Vol 9, No 5.