– 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.
Hi Yiyan,
I am really appreciated to read your post! As Brad Baker said that social media is a place for indigenous people to tell the truth and speak freely, I am strongly agree that social media is a good place for world-wide people to express their thoughts without racialized or bias. We can reach the highest level of authenticity because we can see the hearfelt stories from the individual through social medias. I have the same opinion with you that the problem of using social media in educaton is people may hard to identify false information among the large amounts of information on the internet, and may finally act negative actions because of the guiding of the false things. Thanks for sharing your awesome post and welcome to comment on mine!
Angel Liu
Hi Yiyan,
I really enjoyed your ideas. learning the information on Social media definetly helps indigenous to have the sense of belongingness in the platform and the platforms allow them to have various information and knowledge, and it is not informatio spread by professionals and books, this information are more real and culturally valuable, and I believe it is also another way for everyone to truly understand their culture instead of just studying them. While people are using social media, it is also another way to learn something new from different groups of people. It is the fast spread of culture, virtue and beliefs, and it is the more acceptable way for all age of groups
I sagaciously agree with you that PLN has been very instrumental during these trying times of the Pandemic. People have been able to connect with others during these difficult times where the movement has been discouraged. PLN platforms have helped people share their experiences, and therefore, it has helped people understand other people’s experiences. However, I would like to add that social media has created cyberbullying, catfishes, and increased hackers, which has had a negative effect (Abaido, 2020).