EDCI 338

Group Members: 

Qiaoyang Pang 

Jinwei Zhang

Jingjing Ding

Jiajing Sun

Group Contract for Collaboration

INTRODUCTION

What is PLN?

A personal learning network (PLN) is a network set up by an individual specifically in the context of its professional activities through online platforms to support its professional non-formal learning needs.

What is the effect of PLN?

• From a personal perspective, it supports professional career development and growth. 
• From an organizational perspective, the network is important for innovation, and when dealing with business priorities, it is essential for connecting new trusted partners.

Building A Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Key characteristics of social media platforms

Twitter, WordPress, YouTube and Tiktok. 

These four social media platforms can represent four platforms. Twitter is a popular social networking platform where users can tag, comment, private message and discuss posts with simple actions, users can post their latest news and thoughts as mobile phone messages and can easily communicate and connect with others.

WordPress is a blogging platform for recording, reflecting, storing and presenting. WordPress supports direct HTML editing for post editing, so users who do not know HTML can easily get started with editing. WordPress is also unique in its compatibility, as it allows edited documents or links to videos from other websites to be published directly on, which makes blogging very easy. WordPress also supports fully customisable templates, which allow users to add their own ideas to the blog; in addition to this, there are a large number of WordPress theme templates available on the site so that users can use them for free.

YouTube is a platform that puts videos on top of text messages, allowing users to upload, watch, share and comment on them, Youtube can generate subtitles by recognising the language of the video and can translate them into their own language. TikTok is a completely different platform, using mainly short videos to present various forms of thoughts and ideas. It has the functionality of YouTube but minimises the space for text and puts more focus on video and audio. TikTok provides a passive viewing experience for its viewers, while YouTube provides an active viewing experience for its viewers. TikTok videos do not require a lot of equipment, just a smartphone camera. YouTube videos, however, require a number of specialist setups, including cameras, microphones, lighting and good editing skills.

Features of existing media technologies effective for individual learning

Through a variety of different social platforms, teachers can work with students to integrate social media into their daily teaching, making lessons more interesting and engaging and increasing student engagement. The open forum of social media, and the rapid development of information sharing it facilitates, means that students can somehow accelerate their development of creative, critical thinking and communication processes when using it.

Social media promotes self-directed learning and prepares students to find answers and make independent decisions. When reinforced in the classroom, these social media skills can be coached and refined to produce better learning outcomes and critical awareness.

Social media is more meaningful than traditional learning, whether it is through shared posts with commenting capabilities, surveys related to course material, or questions posed to the community that are ways to motivate students and thus shape and present information. 

In addition, sharing posts and information with other students, rather than simply turning in assignments to the teacher, can promote deeper engagement and better performance (University of Arizona Global Campus, 2021).

Enhance/develop your digital identity/reputation by technology

Traditional learning is usually one way. The instruction teaches students by instilling and providing knowledge, concepts, and information related to the course to students. It is the most common form of learning that the learning relationship is between the instructions. If the instructor asks a question during the lecture, a single student or multiple students would answer the question in turn. The traditional form of learning does not only apply to face-to-face learning but also to many online learning programs. The dynamics do not change as the learning relationship, and most interactions are between the instructor and the student. In this case, students are forever taking the student role. There is no minimum digital identity establishment, as it does not matter. However, the situation is different in a flipped type of classroom. Students are more engaged with learning through a higher level of interaction among themselves (Gouia and Gun, 2016).

However, big data and social media technologies enable people to be more engaged with their online presence. They can leave their digital footprints by liking other people’s posts, blogs, twitters, and sharing, sharing their moments, and posting their own pictures and stories. It is transitioning their physical self to their digital self (University of Derby, 2016). Digital identity and reputation are greatly enhanced. It helps with a flipped form of learning style that students interact with other students in learning. With the help of big data and social media platforms, students establish their digital identities and use them to interact with each other in the flipped-style learning process.

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Through some of the technologies we have discussed above, there are various social considerations that should be accounted for. The first social consideration is accessibility. To promote equality in learning opportunities, the first thing to be guaranteed is accessibility. Although online learning can help eliminate many restraints, including physical barriers, and reduce costs by eliminating commute and travel needed to attend lectures, the digital divide can cause underprivileged students from participation in learning. Even for the wealthy and developed regions like the State of California, broadband internet connection is not available to all. “Broadband access was lower among low-income (57%), Black (61%), Latino (67%) K–12 households and those headed by non–college graduates (67%)” (Gao and Haynes, 2021).

Another social consideration is addiction to social media. Social media technology often uses addictive design, and users spend more and more time on social media platforms. Their physical life, in comparison, becomes plain and dull. Students may become addicted and spend more and more time online using social media platforms. A study (2017) demonstrates that social media usage can induce anxiety among emerging adults (Vannucci et al., 2017, p.163). Students who spend a long time on social media platforms are likely to express anxiety symptoms. Instead of facilitating learning, the technology can deliver adverse effects on the learning process.

Benefits Technology Tracks bring to PLN

Technology Tracks — Big Data

Big Data is a collection of data that is huge in volume, yet growing exponentially with time. It is data with such large size and complexity that none of traditional data management tools can store it or process it efficiently. Big data is also data but with huge size. (David, 2022)

A Short Video on Understanding Digital Tracking

This video includes information on:

• Why websites track browsing activity
• How cookies work
• Avoiding cookie tracking

Every time we use the Internet, our behaviors are all recorded by big data. Some businesses and Internet companies save data or cookies to our browsers to track our behavior. In addition to cookies, many websites use our user accounts to track browsing activity. When we use apps or browse websites, we will find that the content we browse is what we are interested in. For example, video websites/apps like YouTube and Tiktok track our account preferences and push more videos we might like; Search engines like Google and Baidu keep track of your cookies. Then you will see relevant ads on various websites. That’s the power of big data.

Behavioral technology tracks a user’s behavior on the Web, including sites visited, length of visits, content read, and searches made. The main benefits are three:

1. Push relevant learning content to help personalized learning

When learning, we will search for many words related to the learning content on the search engine. Because of browser tracking, search engines log our browsing history and push more relevant content to us. This saves us a lot of searching time. Besides, we can also see the speech of relevant people on some social media, which can not be learned in the classroom. At the same time, technology tracks can help us develop personalized learning. Each learner has different abilities, languages, cultures, genders and ages. Technology tracks do a great job of addressing issues of inclusion and diversity. For example, when a deaf person searches for a video, more videos with gestures or subtitles are displayed. Youtube has an automatic translation into different languages so that people in every country can learn the video content, regardless of the language differences. When using search engines, cookies will allow us to search for more learning content related to our culture.

2. Take classes from professionals for free

PLN is not limited to a single website, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, and Youtube can all become our PLN. Nowadays, we can find our field of interest on many websites. In the past, learning usually required high tuition fees. Still, some free courses have gradually appeared on the Internet in recent years, and some famous scholars and universities set up these websites. It will help higher education institutions save costs, provide a better learning environment for learners, and assess the quality of learning. And most of the classes are free.

• Open stax college

It was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates, is an organization dedicated to helping students gain better access to learning resources. On this website, we can find textbooks from different countries and download them for free.

URL: https://openstax.org/

• edX

edX was founded in 2012 by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a MOOC course provider and online learning platform. Partnering with more than 130 well-known institutions, it offers more than 2,000 online courses.

URL: https://www.edx.org/

• MIT EDU

MIT offers 2,400 open courses to the public. These open courses cover almost every subject and are available for free.

URL: https://ocw.mit.edu/

We can search for what we want to learn directly on these websites; these online courses are not just video teaching. It will have weekly schedules and quizzes, and you can email questions to the teacher at any time. At the same time, you can discuss with other learners in small groups to build your PLN. You will be asked to submit assignments and exams at the end of the course to assess your learning.

3. Meet professionals and make friends with like-minded people

When we use social media, we often search for topics using hashtags. These hashtags can lead us to join a discussion group in which people will be interested and post their works and opinions. We can meet people who have the same interests as us and discuss with them on social platforms. At the same time, in these topics, the website will recommend influencers in relevant fields or people who are also interested in this field. We can also get to know more professionals or leaders in this field through this method and timely get the latest information.

The Pros and Cons of privacy, security and acceptable use policies for social media platforms

The current era is an information age and an age of data. Much information is exchanged and organized to form an extensive database. When we browse the Web or use specific software, cookies and privacy rules appear.

More than 120 countries have enacted some form of international privacy law for data protection to ensure that citizens and their data are more tightly protected and controlled. These data protection laws will evolve in response to advances in the Internet age.Data protection ultimately focuses on protecting data and information from both internal and external threats. It mitigates the risks of fraud, compromise and corruption, and protects the individual. (Thales, 2021)

The weakness is that these security systems still have holes in them. Some computer-savvy hackers write and manipulate computer code to gain access or install unwanted software on your computer or mobile phone for financial purposes. They will sell personal information to some companies. Your personal information may be sold for $0.10! Unfortunately, if your personal information is sold to a scam company, you may receive a stolen credit card because of an email; They may fake your identity to defraud family and friends of their money, so you are in a very awkward position. Your reputation and money will suffer.

In addition, we need to pay attention to what is said on public platforms because everyone will see your speech unless you make it visible only to yourself. For example, someone lost their job because of something they posted on Facebook. What he said might have been his own opinion or aimed at someone, but it accidentally went viral and was subjected to online violence.

Therefore, when using the Internet, although there are international privacy laws to protect your privacy, you should also have an awareness of protecting your privacy. Don’t click on odd websites and emails, don’t give out your personal information and location, delete your credit card information promptly and watch what you say on social media.

PLN Leaders in Economics

John is a data reporter, and he uses numbers to tell stories. He is a senior data visualization correspondent for the Financial Times and a lecturer at City University, London. His Twitter account is constantly updated with his latest posts of exciting links and professional data about the economy.

John’s Twitter

Geoff Riley has taught economics for over thirty years and is a writer and speaker at CPD conferences in the UK and overseas. He posts a large number of his articles on tutor2u for PLN learners. Many of the best resources and activities are free.

Geoff’s Tutor2u

John uses Twitter and posts links or data that appear to be quick pieces of news frequently. These kinds of news pieces are convenient for people to subscribe and follow, which can be great resources for people in economic fields. John builds his presence in the topic of economy by using his position and access to the newest and heated points, and sharing them in short pieces of posts on Twitter that match the reading habits of people. The algorithm that recommends popular Tweets to the users of interest also help John’s building of his reputation on this platform by detecting the “interesting-ness” of the Tweets he sends and what he send would interest a considerable group of people because of his timely information of the newest topics and ideas of this field. 

Geoff, being quite different from John, builds his reputation and presence on Tutor2u with resources that are more in depth, thoughtful and educational. While John shares the newest and heated topics, Geoff provides systematic knowledge in his field. He uses his profession as an advantage and transfers it into readable, systematic and useful learning resources to attract the attention of people who are interested in the field. The algorithm used here is probably the automatic search engine that detects the keywords in the learning resources of Geoff’s which would be sent to people who search for information that are taught in these resources. 

Building a Successful PLN

One simple way to judge whether one’s PLN is a success is to see whether it is popular and gets attention from people who are interested in the same field. Another way to judge it, which is more subjective, is to see whether the creator of the PLN could actually gain from the PLN. It could be the efficiency in getting information they need for research, people that may be helpful for their research or study, or constant updates of new information and development of the fields that the creator is interested in.

Ultimately, the success of a PLN can be very subjective and personal because the most suitable person to judge a PLN is the creator of this very PLN. A PLN is a tool for one to benefit from in study, research or work, and only its creator can judge whether they could benefit from it. However, the aspects of a PLN that we have learned from the course EDCI338 could be standards that one can use to evaluate his/her PLN. Always think of one’s field of interests, purposes and goals for using the PLN and remember that it is an ongoing process rather than a tool with a universal standard.

Reference

Aditya Malik. (2021, January 19). Key benefits of using Big Data Analytics in higher education. BW Education. Retrieved from http://bweducation.businessworld.in/article/Key-Benefits-Of-Using-Big-Data-Analytics-In-Higher-Education/19-01-2021-367186/ 

Taylor, D. (2022, October 1). What is big data? introduction, types, characteristics, examples. Guru99. Retrieved from https://www.guru99.com/what-is-big-data.html 

Adebiyi Adefisan. (2018, March 9). The Pros and Cons of Social Media Security. LinkedIn. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pros-cons-social-media-security-adefisan-acma-ceh-cisa-itilv3-/ 

Beyond GDPR: Data protection around the world. Thales Group. (2021, May 10). Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/magazine/beyond-gdpr-data-protection-around-world 

Internet safety: Understanding browser tracking. GCFGlobal.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/internetsafety/understanding-browser-tracking/1/

Gao, N., & Hayes, J. (2021). The digital divide in education. Public Policy Institute of California.

Gouia, R., & Gunn, C. (2016). Making mathematics meaningful for freshmen students: Investigating students’ preferences of pre-class videos. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-015-0026-9

Vannucci, A., Flannery, K. M., & Ohannessian, C. M. C. (2017). Social media use and anxiety in emerging adults. Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 163–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.08.040

University of Arizona Global Campus Staff Member. (Dec 9,2021). Using Social Media for Learning https://www.uagc.edu/blog/using-social-media-as-a-learning-tool

YouTube. (2016). Eric Stoller – What is Digital Identity? YouTube. Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RryRbJza0&ab_channel=UniversityofDerby.

YouTube. (2017). Social Media Anxiety. YouTube. Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw9phrtO-C8&ab_channel=Psych2Go.   

Reflect on your experience in the course, your development of PLN, your use of social media platforms and networked publics, any changes in your perspective of social media in professional settings and personal use.

Social media used to be entertaining tools for me in most cases. I would use the simple functions of some social media apps such as group chat or file transfer for studying purposes but in most cases, social media is the place where I watch news or get in touch with people. Reflecting on this course, I am surprised that social media platforms are actually an important component of PLN and with different features each platform has, they could work together to expend one’s PLN.

The PLN is also a new concept to me. I used to have the idea of a “knowledge database” that I could store in my laptop but knowing that a PLN is something that is more dynamic and interactive than my “old fashioned” knowledge database, I understood its necessity in having a professional development in my future of study and work.

Whether we realize it or not, I think we are more or less building our PLN with the technology that we use today. We would use different social media platforms when we have different needs from the internet and I think it is a proof that we are unconsciously building a PLN whether professionally or for personal use. Knowing and learning about the PLN in this course made me more aware of it and thus I could purposefully build my PLN towards the way I want it to be like. With the acknowledge and the ways to develop a PLN, I could also make use of the different features of the social media platforms and build my PLN more effectively and avoid potential problems that could occur such as lack of inclusion.

Can your PLN be used to help professional development post-course?

The PLN that I learned to create in this course could serve as a network tool that help with my professional development after this course for several reasons.

First, the PLN addresses the point on inclusion. From the previous weeks we have talked about inclusion and diversity. It helps my PLN to be open to different opinions and views from various people, sources, and culture which gives it more possibility to develop itself into being even more inclusive. I believe this feature would help be helpful in the continuous professional development of my PLN.

Second, the PLN engages the relevant community, provides useful information and minimizes the risk of sharing misinformation. These are all valuable lessons that I learned from the course which I would apply on the development of my PLN. By being closely engaged with the environment and community where information and people of interests are in, the PLN would provide its own valuable takes as well as its contributions. By minimizing the risk of misinformation, my PLN would appear to its community as being authentic and truthful which would contribute to the long term development of the network.

Third, it focuses its core in education and uses multimedia as a tool. The core in education gives it a strong and powerful tag which many professionals are in. The usefulness and popularity of this keyword would give my PLN an advantage in its professional development after this course. The multimedia tools that are the reasons that PLN could be developed effectively in large scale would make my PLN useful in professional development because of the huge amount of resources, individuals with talents and experiences and people who are passionate in their fields on the social media platforms.

Can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities?

I believe my PLN has the potential to open professional opportunities. The above reasons and features of the PLN make sure that my PLN have the potential to reach a wider audience if developed properly. The audience who are interested in the topics of my PLN are likely to have the ability to provide relevant professional opportunities. With my future well established PLN, I would have a digital identity that could well-present my professional image and this could be a possible digital image that brings me professional opportunities or even reaches out for opportunities.

What is media literacy?

If literacy means the ability to read and write to communicate feelings and learning new knowledge and skills through words, than media literacy would contain similar meanings of being able to acquire those information through media. Media literacy is becoming more popular in education and important in our learning and acquiring of information on a daily basis. This is due to the fact that the internet technology is becoming increasingly advanced which brings convenience to, and creating as well as satisfying our constant eager for information. It is also accelerated by the 2019 global pandemic which has forced many learning, communicating and working activities online.

Why is it important?

The internal force for pushing the development and popularity of internet use in education and work field is the vast development of internet technology and multimedia content creation, while the external force being the global pandemic. These two forces have pushed people to adapt to using media, communicating through apps that contain media contents, learning and working with online forms.

As a result, the most important reason for developing media literacy is to get used to the “modern way” of communication and collaboration. One needs the media literacy to be able to decode information, access to the deeper meaning of the information, as well as creating new information in the online context.

Other reasons that make media literacy important are the convenience, diversity and efficiency of the online contents that are provided to the users of media. Being able to well access these types of information would require the users to be media literate meaning that they are able to decode, assess and create media objects themselves. Not being media literate when accessing to media contents, is like trying to catch a fish in the sea when you cannot swim.

Why is it dismissed?

There are many reasons. One should be that people have not realized the importance of it. Media contents are still for entertainment and pleasure for many people and when we think about media contents, we would think that it is informal and can only be used for educational purpose when used to assist traditional offline learning and researching. Media literacy is based on the educational purposes and without realizing the role it plays, there is little need for taking media literacy seriously.

Another reason for it is that some have failed to see the misinformation or potential disinformation that could cause serious problems when media is used for educational purposes. Or the fact that being media literate could potentially bring learners with diverse information and knowledge in a convenient and effective way. In other words, some still do not recognize the power of the media in education, and thus neglected the importance of being able to “speak” the “internet language”.

Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN? Open dialogues about media literacy and factual information can create conflict; why does this happen?

Both has to do with diverse opinions. Since the users and commenters on the media platforms vary, there is hardly unified thoughts and opinions one factual consensus. Sometimes the barriers of people’s languages, background, education, religions or genders could cause debates or even conflicts. It could be purely theoretical or sometimes conflicts of interests. Although for many cases, it is almost impossible or unlikely that they reach consensus because of the variety. It is also what we want to aim for, varied views rather than factual consensus. Since one size doesn’t fit all, we should keep our mindsets open to other people’s views, judgements and values. Close-mindedness could make it difficult for communication and understanding to happen and thus create conflicts.

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

Having a PLN that values media literacy would increase the credibility, accessibility, authenticity as well as the diversity of the PLN. Media literacy represents the ability to use media for one’s learning. A PLN that values media literacy would be accessible because this ability.

Media literacy also gives the creator more chances to express original thoughts and ideas with the help of media features which could make these contents created more authentic and trustworthy, as someone with media literacy would be more likely to have access to original and credible researches and other original and truthful ideas in the first place.

Valuing media literacy for a PLN also suggests that the PLN value diverse opinions and follow the fundamental rules of online communication. Mutual respect and giving voices to values are the “language” that media literacy “speaks” and a PLN with these features are more likely to benefit by being prone to more expose.

How do notable individuals use social media?

I think the word notable could be interpreted into many aspects. It could be academics who do great jobs in their own field, people who are celebrities, or people who become famous by promoting certain aspects of themselves on the social media.

For those who are famous for their work or research, they generally use social media for communication, getting up-to-date news and messages, reaching out to people who they may cooperate with or maybe promote for certain ideas.

As for celebrities, I think many of them would use social media the way we use social media, except that they would get a lot more attention from the public. They could also use social media to spread their ideas, advocations or present parts of their lives like the rest of us.

People who become famous because of the social media are most likely to spend a lot of time and effort using and working the social media. They most likely have special skills or knowledge to make themselves heard or exposed to the public by using topics or actions that catch the public’s interests. Then a lot of them would use this attention and make money out of it. Some would also spread their ideas, state their opinions on controversial topics or promote and advocate for certain values.

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

One of the most obvious benefits is that it brings a lot of attention which comes with possibilities for useful communications or collaborations. Being in the public eye gives one more likelihood to get more useful resources and connections that would benefit one’s PLN.

It would also mean that one’s values or opinions would be more likely to get exposed and be viewed by the public.

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

The restrictions are that the community could lack diversity. An online community that the employer provided is very likely to have heavy influence on the ideology, values and aspects of the employer. Their views could be magnified, leaving little space for other opinions to be viewed and valued. Employers could also potentially use this community to promote for certain ideas which may further decrease the diversity of the community’s opinions and it is dangerous for a community to be competitive with unified opinions.

The benefits are that the community could be more focused on tasks when at work with could improve the efficiency. It could also make communication and information sharing easy because there is little interruption from the switch of tools or platforms at work.

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

Building a PLN to reply on with verifiable resources would require the owner of the PLN to be truthful and authentic in the first place. Honesty and sometimes selflessness can be important factors to building a PLN with verifiable resources. The owner would also be good at identifying and judging resources on their sources, quality and other features and it would both require the owner’s intelligence and experience. An authentic and truthful atmosphere for researches or studies to be conducted in is also important in this process.

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

Minimizing the risk of sharing misinformation has a lot to do with building a truthful and authentic PLN because on the one hand, the readers of stories would need better judgements on the truthfulness of the stories told and then decide whether to trust the news or stories. On the other hand, the storytellers would also need to be honesty and understand the consequences of misinformation. From the storytellers part, there is an ethical issue to discuss and sometimes they need to choose between being truthful and having hit news. They would also need to be trained to be good at doing researches on the stories to be told, as well as conducting critical thinking on the storylines to minimize the risk of missing key points, or interpreting the story in the wrong way.

How does social media engage communications?

Social media promotes communications and provides platforms for all kinds of communications to happen. As was mentioned in the Talk with Markiel Simpson, sensitive topics such as racism and rights of the minority or disadvantaged groups get to be brought up and discussed on social media platforms. Social media in this sense could be used to promote the debate and give voice to diverse opinions so that it is not only the “main stream” voices that we hear.

How does social media challenge communications?

Social media challenges communications by removing filters of certain voices. This is a double-edged sword because it helps people present their true self as we could see people’s personal posts of their thoughts and opinions and that we get to engage in the conversations with them directly. However, the challenge lies in that the lack of filter could cause problems and sometimes even conflicts among different groups of people which does not help with the communications and problem-solving. A good example of such conflict was also brought up in the conversation with Simpson in the case of Donald Trump.

Is it inclusive?

Social media can be inclusive as it has the feature of potentially involving everyone who has access to the internet. Within certain restrictions and limits, people get to express their thoughts and make their voice heard. However, certain voices could still overpowers other voices sometimes which challenges the inclusiveness of the social media just as the traditional media does. People’s preferences could also be detected by optimized search engine that would tend to send the users what they like and want to hear rather than being inclusive. The optimized search engine could also be a challenge for social media to be inclusive and diverse on the users level.

Does your PLN amplify the views of others?

My PLN tries to be more inclusive and amplifies the views of others by including more opinions from various groups of people. Using different resources and reaching out to people in different fields with various backgrounds are some of the ways I would keep doing to make my PLN more diverse and amplify views of others rather than being centered to my voice or opinions.

How to better use social media to build PLN – Influencers & Commentators

From the previous readings, we could say that PLN now is basically built on social media and it uses social media to enrich its contents. Using social media to build PLN would require the users to understand how the features of social media would benefit the communications as well as how it could challenge communications in the first place. One should first have a general idea on what kind of PLN he/she would like to have, as well as what kind of digital identity one wants to be perceived as. Then use the social media accounts as their personal pages to influence people while reaching out to people of their interests, or people with expertise and engage with them in their posts on social media.

Be active, participative, and have an opinion on things when keeping an open mindset by respecting different opinions of others could be a good way to use social media to build PLN.