EDCI 338-Yi Yan

Reflect on your experience in the course, your development of PLN, your use of social media platforms and networked publics. Note any changes in your perspective of social media in professional settings and personal use. Submit a closing blog post about your experience and consider how you can pivot your PLN into your next steps.

In this term, I learned the concept of Personal Learning Network, and its development through the course. Jesse encourages us to widely use Mattermost to share our opinion in terms of the weekly blog topic. Some students suggest using Twitter to expand vision, and knowledge, where hashtag is an effective tool to connect hot topics and personal content. Via the hashtag, people will explore other’s oversight and their experience; thus, benefiting learning and new knowledge gaining. We created the PLN chart in the previous week to understand professional and personal learning tool differences, and we consistently update our chart to include more technology tools to broaden our knowledge. Youtube is widely accepted by students to accept knowledge online. Messenger is the most frequently used communication tool in university as it provides a convenient way for people to chat and interact. I started to focus on Youtube videos to explore the world. Our professor, Jesse Miller, uploaded a weekly video on Youtube as well. He used interviews to connect guest topics with our weekly learning objectives, which provide a fantastic way to spread knowledge. In the future, I will continuously search for useful technology tools to expand my PLN by connecting more people together to share each thoughts and utilizing the advantage of technology to promote better learning ways.

Consider how you can use the PLN interactions of this course to further your digital identity post-term. What does it mean to have a digital identity in your industry of choice and can your current PLN be used to help professional development post-course? Additionally, as you progress through the steps of your career, can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities?

Starting to use a Personal Learning Network indicates an individual is developing own digital identity through exploring new knowledge and connecting with other people. I will continuously use PLN interactions in my post-term for gaining more knowledge and opinions from different people and aspects. People with various gender, sex, social experience, living enviornment, relationship will directly lead to a differ value of thing. It’s advantageous to view perspectives from different regions. Meanwhile, obtaining a digital identity in the industry can help people recognize who you are. What you post online and share with the public will build a unique digital identity. It not only describes personal information including name, gender, age, but also it contains personal interest through each clicking on the site and topic. Professional development post-course also need PLN to build and process, as students use social media to recognize and communicate with each other in the course. It is critical to understand then utilize professional PLN. My current professional PLN should always be updated to fully match my future course. This is a process which needs to be frequently altered and updated

Media Literacy is the ability for individuals to develop while using social media, including how to differentiate fake news, understanding various information, and generating appropriate opinions. Center for Media Literacy (2012) states that this ability teaches people to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages on the different social media. It helps people to express their own feelings and satisfy self-inquiry. Students must develop media literacy skills because it is critical during the learning process; students should distinguish social cliché, jokes, coverage, etc. As students, in terms of media literacy skills, they should first analyze media from understanding why they spread this message and what it aims for and interpreting messages from different perspectives; secondly, they need to create media products from understanding and using media functions to convey thoughts and ideas.

Media provides more than thousands of information daily, and people should realize that some news is only created because of business value, and these are nutrients which satisfy people’s demands. “News is not an objective reflection of reality”. When people realize this concept, they will have the sense of distinguishing true and false messages; thus, developing personal understanding of the media and also pay attention in producing messages. Developing media literacy skill is a cognitive process, as people may be familiar with the policy or rule through discovering online resources and messages; people can access information more effectively because they have the ability to analyze and exclude fake messages.

Speaking about why people hold factual consensus and varied views on some opinions, I would say it relates to the type of information. For example, when people encounter problems such as whether PLN works for university learning, some may hold opposite opinions. However, when discussing whether we need policy to regulate online discussion, most people would agree. Especially in PLN, it is meaningful when people discuss in various opinions as this is the way of learning, learning from different people in different fields, age, and social experience. Therefore, during using the media, we should learn media literacy to help us distinguish bad “news”.

Reference

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2012). Digital Literacy Skills. In 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

– How does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse?

Personal Learning Network in the educational area helps people develop insight and ideas, especially under the COVID-19 pandemic. Most students take online courses for a whole year, where we lose the opportunity to communicate with friends and classmates face-to-face. We are not able to share learning thoughts and exchange knowledge due to the disease. While PLN allows us to interact online, some apps, such as Mattermost, Facebook, are widely used in education discourse. These apps are helpful for students to exchange information and develop their thoughts through reading other’s opinions. PLN boosts proactive learning to some extent, and it encourages people to accept different voices from several working/study fields. 

– What is the role of social media in education?

Brad Baker said social media benefits healthy dialogue, especially for indigenous people, who have the same right to share their feelings and thoughts about education without being racialized. And professional network learning allows them to react and to tell them true stories, not just spread by other people. People using social media can hear first-hand information and bypass the second or third hand, which will lose its initial meaning at some perspectives. Social media allows actual messages to put up, but also multiple messages. People can hear different voices worldwide, from various fields, life experiences, to improve their personal learning in the education area. Veletsianos (2010) also stated that dynamic learning connects people, information, and digital interface. People with the ability to discover knowledge is excellent than just knowing the knowledge.

– What are some problems with social media communications in education settings?

The initial purpose of creating social media is to encourage effective communication, allowing more interactions with others. However, some social media will not provide identity verification, which might cause spreading the wrong message without being accountable. People who are anonymous will perform negative behaviors and do not need to take responsibility, which leads to problems with social media communication.

Reference:

Miller, J. (2021). “EDCI 338 – BRAD BAKER.” YouTube, 04 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy63SmEpvCw.

Veletsianos, G. (2010). Emerging Technologies in Distance Education. AU Press. Ch.6. pp. 114-115, and 128–138.

“The people around you have a wealth of information” Wood stated this opinion in 2013. It also raises a question about how to engage in a topic with unfamiliar people or strangers? Based on my previous experience, Twitter acts as an effective communicating way for strangers to interact. Hashtag (#) is one of the methods to connect with other people online. Individuals are encouraged to use hashtag on Twitter to start a conversation or join an existing forum. “If someone you follow tweets something interesting, tweet an insight back. ” This is a useful method to rapidly construct relationships and gain insights from different points. People may reply to others when facing an interesting topic or in a particular area which you are familiar with. Proactively learning online leads to optimistic learning outcomes. “These conversations are important because they’re another way to trigger insights from others”. Effectively and efficiently using social media such as Twitter and facebook would help us to create our own Personal Learning Network.

Reference:

Woods, Bianca. “Building your own PLN: seeking new insights and ideas? Expand your personal learning network.” T+D, vol. 67, no. 11, Nov. 2013, p. 70+. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A348998538/ITBC?u=uvictoria&sid=ITBC&xid=1010abdf.

My existing PLN in university contains different educational topics and diverse students from various racial, ages, and countries. For instance, my friends come from Canada, China, India, Mexico, and America; we interact and share knowledge within the same topic, which may arouse new conceptual understanding thoughts. Hence, when constructing a personal learning network, I think one crucial element should be diversity. As we all students, who may keep learning in a long time frame, opinion diversity will cause more consensus and arguments. The learning environment of each people will bring various ideas, promoting more scholarly communication. I prefer to engage in a wide range of topics and listen to others’ comments or opinions, and I believe this behaviour could expand my view and my PLN.

When discussing inclusion, we do not package people together with the same language, age, or race. Shelley stated that the year of birth is the only thing students were in common. I think how we define the word ‘inclusion’ leads to how diverse is our PLN. Inclusion represents diversity in terms of education; it collects meaningful voices to strengthen education. We can not deny the variety, as it is part of our life. Each individual is unique or diverse. For students, we can interact more in society. People are welcomed to start with their strengths, based on voluntary mechanism, to communicate and share within the group. 

After watching the video, I think inclusion contains diverse, meaningful voice, people, and topics. Education evolution starts with an exclusion, then segregation, integration, until inclusion, and represents how we interact with other people. If we accept diverse voices, we are successful in today’s educational evolution. We progress because we can hear others’ opinions. We attempt to adopt meaningful various to broaden our view and PLN, which is advantageous to education.

Reference:

Moore, Shelley. One Without the Other : Stories of Unity Through Diversity and Inclusion, Portage & Main Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=4832579.

Questions:

* How diverse is your existing PLN?

* In your PLN, are you learning from a variety of voices or are you the loudest in the room?

* Do you participate in a silo of information sharing (similar themes or wide-range of interests)?

* How can you use a diverse PLN to broaden your views of inclusion?

* In your professional setting of choice, do you think inclusion is actively embraced?

* What is the learning outcome of your PLN and how are you ensuring your exposure to diversity and inclusion?

* How has your thinking about inclusion and PLN evolved after reviewing the videos and readings?

Visitor & Resident Map created by Yi Yan

Digital platforms produced from advanced technology provide students with various studying options. Based on my Visitor & Resident Map, Zoom, Microsoft team, and Mattermost can be considered digital platforms, benefiting students’ develop professional work. Mattermost is being used in EDCI 338 course, which connects students and allows us to share knowledge about each week’s topic. Another example will be the Zoom; it is widely used in university teaching under the pandemic condition. The student with a valid account can host or attend video conferences with their colleagues, groupmates, and professors. Students may get professional support during the virtual meeting.

Students who are collaboratively learning with others or outside materials will be considered a Professional Learning Network (PLN). As a student, I would recommend using Twitter as an extra learning resource. Students are encouraged to engage in an academic topic to share/comment on some ideas. They can also expand their PLN by joining the educational forum. 

I prefer to use Google Drive to record my professional works, categorizing each document from the course, term, and interest. It’s safe to use this kind of online document recording system after login with a username and password. Besides, the operationality and convenience of Google Drive are two advantages for a learner who does not want to waste on researching the utilizing method. Moreover, WordPress is another digital platform taught by the professor to construct our own digital identity. Students use categories such as ‘edci338’ after completing their blog post to induce posts together, created by other classmates. Students under the same category can read other’s post after he/she permits.

LinkedIn is a professional app for both employers and companies, which offers great job opportunities online. Employers can search for a career through this path, which benefits both stakeholders. While the privacy and legal issues occur accordingly, many online activities invade personal information when interacting online. An individual should be aware of what they want to do before the action. Digital images effects employment pathways; a more respectful digital image may deep one’s good impression, and vice versa. This can block or promote one’s employment. Developing a nice digital image is necessary.

Answering questions of :

• What digital platforms are students currently using to develop their professional network?
• What can you (as a student) consider to expand your professional learning network?
• In your network, how can you create a digital identity/reputation?
• Consider what a local employer would do if you applied for a job with them – can they search the content, is it of benefit to the career path, does it hinder the opportunity of employment?