How many different accounts am I gonna need… I have an account for a blog and for mastadon now this… I’m confused. Help…
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Hello there
It is hard having to set up lots of accounts, but a good password manager can help.
You could try LastPass https://www.lastpass.com so you don’t have to remember all the passwords — just one strong master password.
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Yup! Password managers are great - they help us avoid the most compromising thing of all: using the same password everywhere (if it gets compromised in one place, whoever compromised it has easy access to everything else you do). I’ve been using Lastpass for a few years, but I prefer to use open source software… I just recently heard about BitWarden - it’s open source but is otherwise very similar to Lastpass - looking at migrating to it instead…
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Hi @Chantemarie
Thank you for your honest and brave question. This is a demonstration of peer learning and community support.
Apology for my late response. Your original question was not posted in the LiDA forum space at OERu, so I missed this in the course feed. Not to worry - I have moved the question to the correct LiDA course category because I know that other learners would benefit from your question. Learning is fundamentally about sharing. (For more information on how forums are structured on the forums.oeru.org site - this page will help. For Saylor learners - you also have a forum space on the Saylor.org discussion site which can be confusing - but is a unique learning opportunity because the OERu and Saylor communities are learning together.)
Why multiple accounts are needed?
The Learning in a Digital Age course is about learning on the Internet. In the real world on the Internet, users are required to create accounts for access to a variety of services - and in this respect, the LiDA course offers a range of web services using different technologies (not unlike the “real” Internet.) So learning how to manage multiple accounts across a range of Internet services is an important digital skill.
Many websites allow users to login using their personal accounts managed by third party corporate service providers (eg Twitter, Google, Facebook etc.). Every time you log in to a website using a third party account, you are giving away data to the company providing the service. At OERu - we prefer not to force learners to sacrifice their personal data using 3rd party account authentication to access the services we provide freely. The downside is that learners are required to create and manage their own accounts.
While inconvenient and initially confusing for learners, we believe that this is an important digital skill (and literacy) for learning in a digital age. In the next micro-course (LiDA102) or Unit 2 in the Saylor version we will explore the true cost of free websites which is related to the question of why we require users to create their own accounts on the different websites rather than forcing learners to use third party user accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google etc.) to access OERu technologies.
For us at OERu - we believe it is more important for learners to control their own data and access to Internet services - than ease of use which may compromise your freedoms.
Its complex - but I hope you will persevere - you will be better for the experience in my opinion ;-).
… and I haven’t set up a bookmark account. I went back to the instructions for that challenge only to find that the secret word was someplace else which I couldn’t locate. arg! How secure does this really need to be?
I’m struggling with the navigation generally. Where have I been? Where am I in the section? Are there any tools or visual cues available?
Is there any numbering I can reference eg. 1.4 Introduction page with the secret word for Bookmark account creation rather than section 1 - which I couldn’t find after I had filled out all the other information to create a Bookmark account.
Appreciate the extensive explanation.
Who is the intended audience for this course?
Great information but the amount of text and format won’t work for many of my high school and community college learners. A colleague would love it as she insists that learners need to learn to read conventional textbooks and academic writing.
Valid question. Based on our experience - the bookmarks site needs to be reasonably secure to manage the barrage of spam postings. I know because I’ve been deleting these in the past. Learners registered for the course received the code via email and if you search for bookmark code on this site you will find the answer.
The OERu support site provides guidance on navigating the course site. There are also screen cast videos. When you are in a specific learning pathway - if you expand the menu bar, you will see the page you are on in the context of the section because it is highlighted. There is also a site map which provides a “Gestalt” of the structure.
Thanks for your question - I’m sure many learners will benefit from your query.
As an open course, we hope that LiDA101 will be useful to anyone with an Internet connection.
You are right, I can see that reading academic writing may not be appropriate for high school learners. But as an open course - they can skip the academic parts if they want to.
The LiDa micro-courses provide pathways to achieving university-level, formal academic credit including pathways to achieve university-level qualifications in both the community college and university sectors. The expected performance standards are clearly documented in the assessment rubrics published on the course site.
This level of study does require learners to engage with academic text - and our intention is to prepare learners as best we can.
The OERu provides a try-before-you-buy option for high school learners to get a flavour of what is required at tertiary-level study of international standard without spending a cent on tuition. (Note that the LiDA course is accredited in four countries including USA, Canada, New Zealand and the UK at 1st year Bachelor Degree level.)
Thanks for asking! This is valuable information for prospective learners.
Correct - the OERu course materials are not numbered by “section” as a matter of design. The reason for this is to facilitate reuse in different contexts. When numbering subsections in one course context, it becomes harder to reuse them in another course context where for example an OERu partner would like to change the sequence of presentation. If the subsections were numbered, this would complicate in page cross-references if the materials were to be reused by another institution in a different sequence.
The approach we use for referencing is to point or link to the source URL (this is a course about learning on the Internet) rather than the analogue section number of a printed text.
All the source materials of OERu courses are available in WikiEducator for reuse by anyone in the world. We’re doing our best to design and assemble courseware for reuse and remix on a global scale and have learned a lot in the process.
That makes a lot of since about having these multiple accounts to help with my digital skills. U I just think I was so far in and stressing myself I got the best of me. Once I get comfortable I’ll be fine. Thanks for moving my post to the right spot cause I clearly wasn’t paying attention.
I haven’t even done the bookmark thing cause I don’t fully understand it. I need to get a notebook so I can write all this info down. But I can def relate on being confused.
Glad I could help. It was easy to move the post and placing it here will help other participants wondering about the same question.
Hi @Chantemarie
The bookmarks site provides the ability for LiDA101 participants to share links to valuable resources with their learning peers. The site can be used to store links for your own research, and when made public others can benefit from your efforts. As a community member - you can vote for bookmarks you found valuable, and the site can be searched according to the tags applied by the users.
Here are a couple of pointers for when you get started on Bookmarks:
- OERu support site help for bookmarks.
- The code for creating an account was provided in the course announcements for Session 1 (Click on the bar to reveal the submenu.)
Yes, in the beginning the use of a wide range of digital technologies can be daunting. You are not alone. Take one step at a time and you will generate new skills that will serve you a life-time!
Persevere - you will be rewarded!
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