obtained from https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1444327

The first few weeks of the secondary PDP program have altered my perceptions of literacy and the different modalities that can be utilized by both educators and learners to strengthen literacy. I have found myself reflecting on what my current roles are within multimodal landscapes, and what I contribute to the communities I engage with. I am a regular user of instagram, reddit, and facebook, but rarely post content to any of the platforms. For all intents and purposes, I am a consumer of digital media, not a producer. This habit of not contributing to communities is often referred to as “lurking.”

My rationale towards being a lurker has been that I believed aspects of my life are not worth sharing, or that I lack the skills/knowledge to provide worthwhile content. Throughout my reflection I realized a good proportion of the content I engage with is “everyday” content, which, in theory, I am capable of producing.  

Despite my reservations, I want to be a contributor.This feeling is particularly strong for Reddit. Reddit, also known as “the front page of the internet”, is essentially a peer-supported collection of forums and communities. Each community(subreddit), is run by users who have stepped up to the role of moderators. As a regular user of Reddit, I feel that I have a responsibility to contribute. More information on how  Reddit works can be found at https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-is-reddit/.

As my program proceeds I will continue to look for ways to engage and contribute to these communities using a variety of modalities. I believe that there will be some really interesting ways to integrate my growth as an educator with my increased presence in online communities. I will also seek new platforms that I will able to utilize and contribute to.