Thank you

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This is it! Tonight is my last official post for EME6414, Summer 2023. What to write about? If you had asked me a few hours earlier, my honest answer would have been "no idea". It's not I don't have anything on my mind (I may have too much actually), but I was not sure how to approach this last post. So, I've decided I'll do just as usual and draw a few personal reflections. To help me tackle this last challenge, I went back to Canvas and get an overview of our Modules Main Page. Gosh, what a journey it has been! The first image that comes to my mind is the iceberg metaphor. You know, this impression that for years, you had been exploring the World Wide Web with confidence, as if you were in your own neighborhood, with your own habits, hanging out with the same people, getting what you were looking for, not less, not more. And one day, you realize that you were just scratching the surface and that a whole world was lying underneath, inviting you to a whole new...
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Am I too international? (Sunday reflections)

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This International topic triggered more reflections than I thought, mostly due to our discussion thread on Canva which bothers me a little.

In a previous post, I acknowledged my international strategy when developing my ID-oriented PLN. I initiated this PLN during the pandemic when the world shut down, and because I have never heard of instructional design in my country, and because it's not even the exact same expression in French, I found more English content and English-native contacts than similar French resources. That being said, I am French and working in a French environment. I am still hopeful to land a job in a more international setting but it seems impossible due to administrative and cultural barriers. I'm not giving up though, but this issue made me realize I also needed to nurture the French side of my PLN.

I'm working in a higher ed institution, and as much as I am happy with my "US" academic background, I see that it can also make my integration into the French ID world a bit difficult.

Am I too international? In a sense, I might be. In a previous course, I reflected on whether English should remain the universal language in the scientific world. Obviously, English is the most common language in the world, and it has been the rule and norm among scientists for ages. That being said, I was so relieved to read academic papers in French and others reminding us that language is part of our identity, so we should keep publishing in our native languages to promote our culture and our country as well. Web 2.0 has this tendency to put all of us in the same bucket and to consider that the online environment is a whole culture by itself.

I disagree with that idea. And I think that as part of our duties as digital citizens and to promote the values of a democratic culture, we must bring our "offline" identity with us when we plug in with some of the following: write in our native language, talk about local concerns, join local groups, encourage cultural diversity surrounding national questions, etc.

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