These are belated blogposts. I guess, it’s better late than never. One good thing perhaps is that I have the chance to apply some of the ideas taught and discussed in our ONL group sessions and to reflect a bit more on these experiences.

Online participation and digital literacies have become hot topics when the Pandemic started raging havoc worldwide. In particular, in Singapore, there is a greater focus on online active participation, especially in home-based or remote learning situations. Questions were asked about how students manage their learning online and how best to engage students to learning in an online environment. There is another side to participation, which was somehow a blind spot in TEL educational initiatives, and only surfaced when schools were forced to close and learning was transferred to living rooms, bedrooms and other venues except the classroom – the inequality in learning opportunities (conditions and environments). Without going into details, I believe more needs to be done to improve learning conditions/environment before online learning can be scaled effectively across the country.

Digital literacies became the buzz word overnight as the first wave of virus spread across the country two years back. There is a real concern that digital literacy levels may impact how we learn and work, i.e., this applies not only to students but to working adults as well. In the midst of this, is of course teachers’ competencies for technology integration in teaching – their own digital literacies.

Again, we are blindsided by a fixation on technology use and usefulness in supporting learning and working from home, that we fail to realise that what is equally important beside digital literacies, is the need for digital wellbeing. Try teaching (or learning) remotely for six months to one year and you will agree that managing one’s digital wellbeing is crucial to maintaining a healthy lifestyle i.e., looking after personal health, safety, relationships, and work(study)-life balance in digital age is not a given, but something we need to consciously build upon.