At TALL, we have been taking a close look not at what technologies our students use but at how they use them. We found that our students could not be usefully categorised as Digital Natives or Digital Immigrants – i.e. this distinction does not help guide the implementation of technologies, it simply provides the excuse that “some people ‘just don’t get it’ which is why your new approach has failed so badly…”
Anyway, our students’ appropriation of online services did not seem to follow a simple pattern based on skill level. It seemed to depend on whether they saw the web as a ‘place to live’ or as a collection of useful tools. This underlying motivation led us to outline two main categories of distance learning student.
The ‘Resident’
The resident is an individual who lives a percentage of their life online. The web supports the projection of their identity and facilitates relationships. These are people who have a persona online which they regularly maintain. This persona is normally primarily in a social networking sites but it is also likely to be in evidence in blogs or comments, via image sharing services etc. The Resident will, of course, interact with all the practical services such as banking, information retrieval and shopping etc but they will also use the web to socialise and to express themselves. They are likely to see the web as a worthwhile place to put forward an opinion. They often use the web in all aspects of the of their lives; professionally, for study, and for recreation. In fact, the resident considers that a certain portion of their social life is lived out online. The web has become a crucial aspect of how they present themselves and how they remain part of networks of friends or colleagues.
The ‘Visitor’
The Visitor is an individual who uses the web as a tool in an organised manner whenever the need arises. They may book a holiday or research a specific subject. They may choose to use a voice chat tool, such as Skype, if they have friends or family abroad. Often the Visitor puts aside a specific time to go online rather than sitting down at a screen to maintain their presence at any point during the day. They always have an appropriate and focused need to use the web but don’t ‘reside’ there. They are sceptical of services that offer them the ability to put their identity online and don’t feel the need to express themselves by participating in online culture in the same manner as a Resident.
In effect, the Resident has a presence online which they are constantly developing while the Visitor logs on, performs a specific task and then logs off.
How is this different from Digital ‘Natives’ and ‘Immigrants’?
This is, of course, not a polar distinction. There is a spectrum of which the Resident and the Visitor represent two extremes. It is a useful distinction because it is not based on gender or age. While our data would indicate that the portion of the population over 55 is predominantly made up of Visitors, there are examples of Residents in this section of the demographic. Similarly, it is the case that not everyone younger than 25 is a Resident.
It is not always easy to spot who is in each category, as the level of sophistication with which a Visitor might use any single service might well be greater than that of a Resident. Again, this is not a skill-based distinction. In fact, I know of at least one ed-tech researcher who considers himself to be a Visitor out of choice.
The Resident is likely to have arranged some sort of system to manage the relationship between services and the flow of information through their browser but this does not mean that they will be any more effective at researching a specific topic than a Visitor. This is why data from a survey that simply asks what online services a group of students use is next to useless.
How does this distinction affect learners?
This Visitor-Resident distinction is useful when considering which technologies to provide for online learners.
For example, if your learners are mainly Visitors, they are unlikely to take advantage of any feed-based system (such as RSS feeds) for aggregated information you may put in place. They are also unlikely to blog or comment as part of a course. The Resident will expect to have the opportunity to offer opinions on topics and to socialise around a programme of study. In fact, they are likely to find ways of doing this even if they are not ‘officially’ provided. We offered membership of a Facebook group to our students as they left their online courses. The majority signed up without question, as they wanted to stay in touch with fellow students and continue discussions. The remainder saw the group as pointless and a possible invasion of privacy.
Both sides of this argument are correct… It’s a question of approach and motivation, hence Visitors and Residents.
This article was originally posted on the TALL blog and has only undergone minor changes for this blog. More information about Digital Visitors and Residents can be found in Visitors and Residents: The Video by David White.
