Category: edci338 reply

Hi, I agree that we need to keep working on our PLN by updating our resources, reaching out to people and expending our field and sights to have professional development and opportunities. I also think that the choice and use of multimedia can be an important part to consider when developing the PLN. The recent development of social media seems to be confusing sometimes. For example, the popular TikTok which seems to be a video focused platform have attracted many people and taken away the time people spend on other social media platforms. The contents are mostly video forms which seems not “formal” to educational purposes. However, I think as professional PLN developers, we need to always keep an open mind for new forms of media and keep up with the development of technology to stay updated. Therefore, in my view, we need to not only work on the already existing social media platforms when developing our PLN in professional ways, but also stay alert to new platforms to be able to develop a long lasting PLN.

Hi Abdul, I

Nice post and I agree that we need media literacy to assess and judge information because some of them can be false and in educational context, they could be problematic in one’s learning and PLN building. I think that apart from assessing messages, media literacy could also include the ability to create messages, especially authentic and truthful messages to be viewed by other people. I think media literacy could be compared to the idea of literacy which is not only being able to intake but also send out information in the media platforms.

Hi Yuxin,

Good post on this week’s questions! I like it that in the section of verifiable resources you mentioned that both the website designers/developers and the individuals need to be cautious about the reliability and the verifiability of the resources. In building a PLN, it can be crucial sometimes because they could determine one’s truthfulness of the PLN. However, I think there should be more than just asking individuals to be cautious and post reliable information to the best they could do. I think there should be laws or regulations built for this type of issues, as well as trainings or classes designed to raise people’s awareness on this matter. What do you think?

Hi Becky,

I like it that you mentioned that the inclusiveness of social media is effected by the exclusion chosen or restriction done by countries. I also think your examples of TikTok and KaoKao Talk are interesting cases used to discuss under this topic of inclusion. I agree that the restrictions and using nationalities as the distinctions to select the users who could sign up can be a great influence on these types of social media being inclusive or not. However, for those social media apps and platforms that are not restricted by certain countries or regions, we should ask why they tend to be used only by certain groups of people rather than being more diverse. I think this could lead to questions such as whether there are internal features of a social media platform that excludes certain groups of people, or the way certain apps work would prevent some people from using them.

I like your concise summary of Woods’ five strategies in building a PLN. I think by asking questions related to the five tips such as what you did in the first one, we could get a clearer image on what kind of PLN we could create of our own. I also really agree your idea of “The best social media campaigns engage users with content that is meaningful to them.” I think that it is the same idea when designing contents for users, which is to have the users as the center when designing. When it comes to building a PLN, having the target audience as the center to design your own PLN could potentially attract more people.

You mentioned authenticity and I think it is great because being authentic is one of the most important factor in building a PLN. It shows that one is worth engaging with and is valuable for the original contents one create. Do you think authenticity could be shown and made obvious in one’s PLN?

Hi Sarah,

Really nice post and thorough understanding of the PLN and social media’s functions on the issue of vulnerable sectors. I like it that you mentioned Dr. Baker’s idea that the value of social media is to hear the true story of individuals that are told by individuals rather than what the main stream media tells people.

I think this view has two sides because it is good that individuals’ stories are told and people could see more opinions rather than one unified view created with certain purposes, however it is also likely that sometimes the small voices and views by minor individuals are false and misleading. I think it depends on us individuals to both respect and value the stories from the vulnerable sectors, and be mindful about the false ideas that sometimes mislead us for certain purposes.

Hi Jason,

I think you brought up a good point in the topic of diversity. I like the idea that the diversity of one’s PLN means that it includes various skills, expertise and capabilities. I also agree that it is a good mindset to not think about other people’s gender, religion, culture, sexual orientation etc., when interacting and communicating online. The inclusiveness and diversity of the PLN could really give one more access to different brilliant ideas and aspects.

One thing I worry about in this diversity topic is that the social media apps sometimes have the optimization function which means it only presents what it thinks the users would like to see and only pushes feeds with those tags. The results of this are that people tend to see less diversity even if they want to see more. I wonder whether you think it could be a problem in the topic of diversity.

Hi Kevin,

I like your example of your parents’ work because it showed that the social media connectivity works for their cases and that the remote working model actually saved time and money for the employees and company as working has been moved online. I wonder what you think about the cases of our learning online because the online courses seem to work similarly as some companies moving their work online. I also mentioned my understanding of the situation regarding the online working and studying. Feel free to check it out:

I also like your idea that “remote work has significantly increased meaning that people will have an online digital identity through professional apps.” Digital identity has become increasingly important as we rely on social media and the internet more. Moving work and study online accelerated this process and using professional apps designed for work or study made the apps the first option for people of needs.

Qiaoyang

Hi Kiera,

I like it that you used the video provided in our class watching list and used the reference “digital footprint” to refer to the digital identity. I think it is very expressive because whatever we do online would leave some traces and that is exactly who we are and what our behaviors are like on the Internet.

You also had a really good point in the professional and private digital identify because using the Internet is such a common thing both in personal life and professional working field that we have to separate the two aspects of our life the same way people do with their offline professional and private life.

“Anything you post on your personal account you should be comfortable if someone from your professional account happens to see.” I like your point of view in regard to what we post about our private life. Although I think that we should separate the two aspects of our lives rather than being okay with people from the working field to see what our private life is like. This is because our privacy, as long as they are legal, reasonable and doesn’t impact our work life, we have the right to keep them private. So I personally think that it is okay to separate them and if the work would require any form of checking our personal digital identity, we have the right to refuse.

What do you think?

Qiaoyang