Month: March 2021

• Consider how you can use the PLN interactions of this course to further your digital identity post-term.

      My PLN interactions have been developed through our online class community which is Mattermost. It helps me to create my digital online and I am able to communicate with my classmates there. I also create my blog posts on WordPress and other classmates will comment on my posts. It helps me to create my digital identity. This is my first time using the online community, I think it is a great way to develop my PLN interactions. We also get a chance to do the group work online with my classmates, we share ideas and thoughts online and be able to meet using zoom. As for my further digital identity, I learned that I need to talk more and be more active in the class community, it is a way of making more connections with others.

• 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?

        My digital identity is created by use my personal information on the web and the data is created by my actions online. As for my industry of choice, I share ideas on Twitter and hashtag #Economic. It gives me a lot of useful information to help with my academic learning. It has my unique information online which is a way of creating a digital identity online. I still need to work on my current PLN in order to help professional development post-course. because I think I need to make more connections with the experts online. They can provide me with more professional ideas so that my PLN can develop more professionally.

• Additionally, as you progress through the steps of your career, can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities?

        I still need to improve my current PLN in order to help me with professional job opportunities. I just started to use LinkedIn and didn’t have a lot of connections. By making more connections on this app can help me to develop more job opportunities. However, I think my PLN can still be relied on because I have developed much reliable information for my industry. I can get a lot of information for my future career. Experts can provide me with personal information and gain from their experience. With the strong PLN, I can rely on it and get more job opportunities for sure.

Oliveira, Nuno R., and Lina Morgado. “Digital Identity of Researchers and their Personal Learning Network.” Springer International Publishing, Cham.

• What is media literacy? Why is it important? Why is it dismissed?

     Media literacy is the ability to identify many different types of media and understand the message social media trying to tell us. It allows people to access, critically evaluate, and also create media. According to the center for Media Literacy, media literacy skills provide “a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms and also build an understand of the role media in society (Trilling & Fadel, 2012)” Media literacy is important because it can helps us identify words and understand what those words mean. In this way, the readers can also become writers. With all those experience , readers and writer can have strong literacy skills. Media literacy is also important because it is also a way to let us know that how it might influence the beliefs of ourselves. It also let us look upon the words represents by media and provide us with many different skills, tools and techniques. However, media literacy can also be dismissed because there is too much information online and not all of them are reliable. Many information on the social media is fake that will influence people’s opinions.

•  Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN?

In my personal learning networks, I think varied views are very important because we can connect all different kind of people this way. And get different opinions from different views. We exchange ideas with others on social media, and we can exchange different viewpoints as well. This is a way to learn online as well. However, the factual consensus is very important because we need to let people trust our PLN and trust the connections that we make.

• Open dialogues about media literacy and factual information can create conflict, why does this happen?

      Media literacy and factual information can create conflict because people may only think about their own opinions and ignore the factual information. It is hard to change people’s opinions when they already believe in them. However, it might be so different than factual information. Nowadays, social media gives us many news information. People get different information mostly online. There are might be understanding or incorrect information. People still only believe what they see online and forget to notice the actual information.

• What is the benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy?

    The benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy is to improve our ability to understanding what information is given by the media. And get to know what the correct information is and get to know other people’s views. It also lets us have the ability to explain, evaluate the information. It teaches me how to verify the information and recognize other points of view.

EDCI 338 (2020, Nov 1). A01 Smith, Julie. Retrieved from YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_T9RghwJlI&feature=youtu.be

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

• Explore the video provided and reflect on the themes of a PLN in a professional capacity – how does a PLN give power to messaging for an individual or community?

      PLN gives the power to message for individual or community by talking to other people faster and it is very convenient. We use many online platforms to connect with each other. Nowadays, people use their phones all the time. We can get a message as soon as possible when we use social media to connect with each other. As for the interviewer, Brad Baker found that the growth of the community is important. And it is all connected. The community needs to be a healthy community. The role of his learning network is to bring understanding. The personal learning network also gives me the power to message our online classmates as well. We could do the project together without meeting each other. Personal learning networks also give me the power to make professional connections electronically. It gives me access to comment, post or message other people and can get plenty of ideas.

• Education occurs in so many environments beyond the classroom, how does social media help expand education and associated needed communications?

       Social media help us expand education and associated needed communications. First, social media provides more direct communication tools between students and teachers. It is much quicker to ask and respond to questions outside the classroom. It is also used to share information and exchange ideas on social media. It can let us connect with learning groups online. It is a very effective way to build a learning community. Social media also help us to learn about other people’s experiences as well. We can also hear worldwide news from the internet as well. According to Brad Baker, Social media allows multiple messages to come out not just the story. And social media can become the channel of communication. As for the frequent social media app that I use is Twitter, I can use hashtags to search information for my academic studies which are helpful. People recommend books and learning tips on there. This is the learning format that I couldn’t get inside the classroom.

• Community communications go beyond blogs and social media shares, how does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse?

       A personal learning network helps us the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse. It let students communicate their ideas to the teachers and their classmates. Online teaching is very common nowadays. Especially in the COVID- 19 situation right now. we can express our ideas and thoughts online. Through the personal learning network, more people will be able to express their ideas and we can learn from others. However, the problems might be that in the education discourse. The teachers cannot see what the students are doing while they are learning. And communicate online with the teachers is not that convenient compare to communicate with the teachers face-to-face. Some of the ideas might be hinder through online communications.

• How does the use of PLN raise awareness opportunities in education?

      PLN helps students to learn online and get knowledge through social media. As for education, we can get so many opportunities online and information. Brad Baker has said that he got many opportunities using social media. And it is also allowed the indigenous people to talk about their experience which gives a lot of opportunities to let them learn. When we ask a question on social media, it is very quick to get an answer. Because so many people can see this question and help you to answer. This is the process of learning in education, it is how PLN helps us in education.

•  What is the role of social media in education?

      The role of social media in education is to provide us with the ability to get more useful learning experiences and help us to connect with other learning groups. And it will make education learning more convenient. Social media can help is to connect with experts on our learning topics. It will let us have the opportunity of engaging experts to get responses to our questions.

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

      One of the problems with social media communication in education settings might be there is a lot of information online. For example, when you ask a question, you might get so many different responses. However, not all of them are correct. Students might get confused and choose the wrong answer. It will hinder their learning. Another problem would be privacy, people may use other’s people’s work online. Students may just search for the answers online without thinking by themselves.

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.

• Identify the risks and benefits of engaging with a public audience in a media space – what are the risks for a public figure or person in a position of trust (educator, lawyer, government official)?

There are many risks and benefits that when we are engaging with a public audience in a media space. As for me, social media help me learn more experience from others. And when I talk in the community, it allows me to hear more ideas from other people. When we are engaging with a public audience, we can care about the concerns, experiences, and opinions. We create a connection that makes us more open to receiving the information or ideas that we want to share with the public audience. With all the online formats, the public audiences would be engaged. When we share any posts online, an involvement gets the audience closer to the ideas. The online community helps us to get more opinions. However, privacy online would be a risk that we need to consider. Jody Vance said that “I have really benefited so much from the foundation of my network”. We can tell the benefits that the network brought us. However, there are also some risks. One of the risks might be that personal information can be found faster on the internet. As for the person in a position of trust (educator, lawyer, government official), it will be riskier because when those people engage with the public audience the information will be more confidential. We need to look at the consequences with the person in a position of trust on the public network.

• How to best address negative replies and critiques reflective of your personal values and employer social media policy?

Social media is a public network that allows almost everyone can see the opinions or posts. We cannot stop there might be some negative replies and critiques that will affect our personal values. We still need to respect other people, we still need to be kind all the time with my response. And, we need to be thankful for the feedback. With the negative feedback, we need to focus on the mistakes that we might make, and it gives us an opportunity to learn how to express our ideas on public social media. We might also choose to ignore it. As for employer social media policy, we need to be more polite to respond to those negative replies and critiques because it might affect our work and influence our mood.

• How do notable individuals use social media?

I think for notable individual people they also share their life on the social media as well. Notable induvial people will post things that they want to share with their followers. They also need to build trust with the followers. What they post might be more attractive compare to normal people. Because people do get a lot of helpful information from them. They can share photos or videos with their followers and get general networking with other people. Notable individuals might also provide some professional information to their followers. Basically , how they use the social media is same as how normal people use it . but they need to build more trust with their followers on the public network. Jody Vance uses social media to explore more connections with other people and it also will give her more opportunities.

• What are the benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN?

There are many benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN. Personally, I think having a PLN can help with our career development and get many interesting ideas from others. By having a PLN, we can get connected with more people and share experiences with them. A personal learning network allows me to personalize my learning and let me choose the topic that I want to focus on. What’s more, it can also help me to build relationships by asking questions and will get valuable resources from followers on public networks. Having the public eye helps me to connect with others and also get some of the professional ideas.

• Building community with online tools provided by the employer can be limiting, what are the perceived restrictions and benefits?

When building a community with online tools provided by the employer is usually very limited. People cannot talk on the community that freely when it comes to with the work areas. However , there are still many benefits that helps with the working online community. When building a working community, I think it is easy for the employee to switch schedules and the requirements can be discussed more efficiently. It usually has some restrictions that the employee can post in the community. The management team usually will set up online settings and monitor some of the private conversations when it happens with the working community. However, when building the working community. People tend to have more connections with other people, it might be helpful for their future career development.

• Delivering information in a connected society requires verifiable resources, how to build a PLN to rely on?

When we want to build a PLN that we can reply to, it is important to provide the references on social media. When other people look at your information, they will think it is accurate information and build trust with what you post online. With this process, it is helpful to start to build our own PLN and trust with the followers. We can also provide proof to our followers. Given the accurate information that the followers can be found is important to build trust.

• How do those, who are veteran storytellers, minimize the risk of sharing misinformation?

The veteran storytellers did not experience what happened so that their information might be at risk. People tend to tell the story a little bit differently from time to time. This is how it likely to be that a movie is talking about the true story that happened before. However, without the actual experience. The information might be different. One way that I can think of to minimize the risk in sharing misinformation is that when telling a story by asking the people who experienced it. It is very important. And expand the PLN with reliable resources can also lower the risk of sharing misinformation.

Vance, Jody & Miller, J. “EDCI 338 – 2021 – 03 – 21 JODY VANCE.” 03 Mar. 2021. DOI: https://.youtube.com/watchv=dgZOJgJKdyl&feature=youtu.be

Hirst, M. (2018). Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9781315401263