Media literacy enables the populace to understand and contribute to public discourse. Sometimes the media literacy is different from factual information which will lead to conflicts. There are several reasons:
belief and culture: different beliefs and culture can cause different explanation about certain content on the internet.
misleading and false information: Internet is an open space for everyone to speak. information is not always true. There are many misleading and false information on the internet. We need to learn how to distinguish them.
individual differences: not everyone has the same media literacy, therefore their texts may lead to misunderstandings and disagreements about the credibility of sources and the accuracy of information.
Having media literacy enables us to build a better environment of PLN. A network that values media literacy encourages critical thinking and evidence-based analysis. Members are more likely to engage in thoughtful discussions and evaluate information objectively, and is more likely to encourage responsible sharing of information and discourage the spread of rumors, misinformation, and clickbait content. More important, it enables us to build a friendly environment for everyone to learn. Media literacy reduces discrimination, enhance empathy, and connect people all around the world.
Mainstream social media platforms(Which i am familiar with) that are beneficial in education are Twitter, YouTube, TedTalk, And newly emerging TikTok.
Twitter enables people to share text, images, videos, and audio. People can learn about the news and speeches of influencers. There are many influencers in variety of fields share their knowledge on it. Shortages: Lack of strict control over speech, The quality of content varies.
YouTube is a video-sharing platform where educators can create and share educational videos, tutorials, and lessons. It can be a valuable resource for flipped classrooms, supplemental learning materials, and engaging visual content.
It’s important to note that the selection of social media platforms should align with the educational goals, needs, and age appropriateness of the students. Educators should carefully consider privacy settings, terms of service, and adhere to school policies and guidelines when using social media platforms in educational settings.
For the protection of vulnerable sectors, social media platforms should review speech to ensure that there is no discriminatory speech. And protecting personal information and privacy of vulnerable sectors. It should also be user-friendly in terms of usage.
I think social media platforms facilitate communication and collaboration among students, educators, and educational institutions. They provide channels for sharing information, resources, and ideas, enabling educators to connect with colleagues, students, and parents. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can be used for professional networking, sharing educational content, and engaging in discussions.
To understand how to balance PLN and public discourse, let’s first break it up.
P = Personal, L = Learning, N = Network
Learning Involving interaction, communication, and exchange for knowledge and experiences with others, so Personal learning network may not be that “personal” as it sounds like. Networks are build up on the social media platforms.
Social space on the internet is a place where people can be anonymous and anyone can assess it. people don’t have to know you and you don’t have to know them. So, sometimes the comments by others can be harmful, disrespectful. While most people is friendly and glad to use it as a tool for learning. You can learn from people all around the world.
As a public figure, the most important thing is their reputation. No matter they are an educator, a lawyer, or a government official. They need to be trusted by the public, which means they need to be very careful about what they say and post on the internet. One small mistake can be overly amplification and interpreted. Losing the trust of the public means that loss their authority, and their speech will no longer taken by the public.
As I said, social media is an open space for everyone. Everyone has the freedom of speech, even when they make negative replies. Facing negative comments is something that each of us will experience to some extent. For me, I understand that it is an open space for everyone, and I know the purpose of why i am using social media. I am here to learn, and making friends with people have some interests with me. As for the negative replies, I will listen if the comments make sense and can help me improve myself. Otherwise, I will just ignore them.
In the last two weeks, I talked about how to build and expand PLNs, and what role social media plays in PLNs. This week, I will share my understanding of how social media can benefits our PLNs.
As an example of this class, we are asked to share our learning experiences in posts weekly. In this way, we can turn our understandings of the topic into text, and we can read others’ posts, and comment others. Other students can do the same thing. Discussion on Mattermost allow us to make immediately communication and also asynchronous discussion with our classmates.
The point is —– interaction
I believe that interaction with others can help me learn better. Interaction is the exchange of knowledge.
Social media sharing can also help us to find people who have the same interest and learning the same subject as us. By connecting with people from diverse backgrounds in your PLN, you gain access to a broader range of knowledge and expertise. Each individual brings their unique experiences and expertise, allowing you to learn from their insights and benefit from their expertise in different areas.
A diverse and inclusive personal learning network (PLN) has brought many benefits in social media sharing. It provides a wide range of perspectives from individuals from different backgrounds, cultivates Critical thinking and challenges preconceived ideas. By establishing connections with people from different cultures and experiences, you can gain a broader knowledge base and expertise in different fields.
Rheingold suggests that “somnambulism” (or sleepwalking) is a key factor in technological politics. “decisions are made because decision makers are asleep.” In other word, we have to be awake, to examine the potential impact of new technologies. “benefits may cause an awake person to pretend to be asleep.”
What do we need to know to design, deploy, control, and live humanely with the tools we are creating?”
knowledge of design principles：user-centered design, and human-computer interaction is crucial to ensure that the tools are intuitive, efficient, and inclusive.
Ethical considerations and responsible technology practices: is necessary to uphold human rights, privacy, and fairness while avoiding biases and unintended consequences.
Data management, privacy security, and compliance: ensures the protection of user data and the secure functioning of the tools.
Before adapting a new New technologies must undergo multiple tests before being put into use. Institutions should approach the adoption of new technologies from the perspective of users, considering whether the technology can genuinely address their needs and anticipate any potential challenges they may encounter during usage.
Before implementing new teaching tools or methods in their own practice, teachers should carefully consider several factors. Firstly, they should clearly define the teaching objectives and learning outcomes that the new tool or method aims to achieve, ensuring consistency with the curriculum and educational objectives. The applicability of evaluation tools or methods to specific content, themes, and teaching environments is crucial. Understanding students’ needs, preferences and Learning styles is important for catering to diverse learners and creating an inclusive environment. Both teachers and students should receive sufficient training and support resources to promote the effective integration and utilization of new tools or methods. Assessing technical requirements, assessing infrastructure compatibility, and ensuring reliable and accessible technologies are key considerations. Planning evaluation and evaluation, managing time and resources, and addressing ethical issues contribute to successful implementation. By considering these factors, teachers can strengthen teaching practice, promote student participation, and achieve expected learning outcomes.
Reflection
I choose this topic because nowadays, there are many new technologies and methods of learning appear, which need to adapt the market and to be adapted by the users.When institutions introduce new technologies and teachers use them for teaching activities, they should also consider the long-term impact of this technology on education. ChatGPT, as an example, some institutions advocate for prohibiting students from using it. While others encourage students to use it as long as they give proper citations.
I believe that students should actively embrace the emergence of new technologies and learn to harness its advantages because the development of technology is inevitable, and we should find ways to benefit from it.
I choose a course from Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/) based on my major that I am currently studying at UVic — Psychology. The course is Introduction of Psychology offered by Yale university.
It’s a beginner level course that need approximately 14 hours to compete, but learner can flexible scheduling of their study time. This course has 7 modules, each module provides videos, readings, and quizzes. After taking this course, learners will development skills of reasoning, problem solving, critical thinking, and general knowledge about psychology.
I took module 1 of this quiz, which is a basically introduction of the instructor and this course. This course is generalized and suitable for beginners to learn. The course schedule is flexible. My evaluation criteria are based on course content and course composition. The course is well organized.
Compared to traditional’ courses:
legitimacy: The courses are authoritative and provided by instructors from different universities. The one i was taking is taught by Paul Bloom from Yale. I search him on Ratemyprofessor, and the score is very high. So, the legitimacy of this course and the website is guaranteed. It offers the same course with same instructor as in universities.
Autonomy: Online classes require more autonomy than traditional classes because the schedule is flexible and students need to manage their own time for study.
Connection with your peers and the instructor(s): Lack of communication is a disadvantage of learning on the website. There is no way to communicate with the instructor or other students except comments on the course page.
Assessment and evaluation: There are module quizzes, and most are multiple choices questions, evaluation is based on the system and the preset correct answer.
Based on the information of this course, I think it is a xMooc. This course is a combination of a pre-recorded video lecture with quizzes, tests, or other assessments, and there is no communications between learners and instructors. xMOOCs are centered around a professor rather than around a community of students.
Reflection
I choose this module activity because I took other online classes before, and I like this way of learning especially the form of xMooc. I am kind of social phobia. I don’t like group work, and group discussions. For students like me, xMooc are the ideal way to learn. We can watch the course recordings based on our own time and we don’t have to communicate with others. Mooc is also benefit for other people, such as people who have worked. They don’t have time to study like a full-time students. So, this form of classes allow them to study at spare time. I do think Mooc is open course it’s open for everyone as long as you pay. (some of them are free), Simplest example: i am not a students of Yale, but I can take the course taught by professor of Yale.
The main question for this week’s blog is “How would you create a PLN prior to engaging in a social media campaign on a topic of your choice?”
We have to know that all PLNs are different. There are similar platforms at early stages of competition, but after time there are only a few the most successful platforms left. For example, Youtube, Twitter, TikTok are the leaders in their field. They have some similar functions, but they each have their own advantages. Youtube are for educators to post their videos, which are usually long, and Twitter is for texts and pictures, TikTok is for short videos, which are usually Including a single point of knowledge. On another word, because of most people are using it.
So, when choosing our PLN, we need to choose the one with the most potential, and with more visitors and creators. More people on it, means more we can learn from.
Knowing your interest also help you to build your PLN. Determine the specific area or subject you want to focus on for your social media campaign. Having a clear topic will help you narrow down your search for relevant information.
Identify key influencers and experts. For example, i am a psych student, and a expert in psychology posts his knowledge and understanding on Youtube weekly. This is why i create my Youtube account to follow him and watch his video. During this time I explore more influencers on Youtube, and i have expanded my PLN.
Continuing learning and exploring is the key to create and expand PLN. As the example I gave before. I expand my PLN from one expert to many. In the process of continuous exploring, you may discover many unexpected gains, from one expert to many and from one platform to many. Learning should be an ongoing process. Dedicate regular time to expand your knowledge by reading books, articles, and research papers. Listen to podcasts or watch videos related to your topic. Stay curious and open-minded to new ideas and perspectives.
Zoom video communications inc, is usually referred as Zoom, and widely used for online chat, and video communications by companies and schools. The first time I used it was during the pandemic, when all my classes conducted online. The major functions of Zoom are video communications (Meetings), messaging (Chat), voice calls (Phone), conference rooms for video meetings (Rooms), virtual events (Events) and contact centers (Contact Center).
Zoom is launched in 2013 by its creator and CEO Eric Yuan. Eric Yuan is a Chinese-American. Because of his background, when Zoom are widely used during the pandemic, the security and privacy policies are concerned by western society. They are worrying that if Zoom would share the users information with Chinese government.
Before we going through the privacy policies of Zoom, let’s considering what information do we need to register and login Zoom.
We can use our phone number, Apple ID, Google ID, and Facebook ID to login. We can also use a safer way to login it, the SSO, and with SMS. SSO allows us to use a company or institution domain to sign in.
When register it, We need to provide our e-mail, date of birth, and phone number.
Now, let’s go back to the question, is it safe to use Zoom? Where do they keep our information?
Zoom meeting service is where they keep all the data of our screen-sharing, chat, connectors, audio plans, cloud storage, and other collaborative services. Zoom has a very strict policy of copyright and data.
Which means we own the meetings, chats…. the activities we conducted on Zoom, nobody else could use it.
The goal of Zoom is :
Zoom allows us to conduct remote learning.
Reflection
The popularity of Zoom is due to people being quarantined at home during the pandemic, but I think it is believe this is an inevitable trend. Remote working, and learning saves lots of costs of time and transportation, and overcomes the limitation of time and space of traditional learning.
Privacy information is what we need to concern. We are not offering much to Zoom, (only our date of birth, e-mail… which are needed for almost all other apps) and our activities on Zoom are well protected (based on their policy and information online) I believe Zoom is a save place for us to do learning.
Schools and teachers always teach us how to avoid plagiarize. As more and more learning activities are conducted online, I think it is also important to teach students how to protect their own works.
My PLNs are based on my needs of learning. What subjects and materials i am learning. They are diverse and expanded by the purpose of learning. For example, TikTok, is the social media platform I used most when I want to relax myself a little bit and I can also learn many new knowledge through the short videos. I believe that “learning can happened everywhere.” Besides, now the algorithm will recommend similar videos to you based on the content you are interested in. Other PLNs I used are institutional. I use them to do formal learning. Social media determined the quality of interaction between me and others.
Inclusion within a professional setting is crucial for creating an environment where everyone feels respected, valued, and empowered to contribute. to be “inclusion” we should actively engaged in the class, and discussions. Post and comment others with respect. Inclusive PLNs can help us connect with individuals who offer unique insights, different cultural perspectives, and a wide range of expertise, ultimately leading to more well-rounded personal and professional growth.
During this week’s discussion. Our group members agree that we should embracing unfamiliar topics involves maintaining an open mindset toward exploring viewpoints and subjects that may be new or challenging to build up an inclusive and diverse PLN.
Social media also play a key role in helping us establish messaging and themes that are inclusive and diverse. Social media expand the influences of our voice( messages, blogs, videos…) and make it possible for more people to listen to our voice. Social media allows us to share content that promotes diversity and inclusion. By sharing resources, articles, and thought-provoking content on our social media profiles, we can disseminate inclusive ideas and encourage others to engage in discussions around diversity.
Establishing a diverse and inclusive PLN is instrumental in fostering personal and professional growth. Social media platforms provide an opportunity to connect with individuals from diverse backgrounds, access global knowledge, and challenge our assumptions. By actively leveraging social media to establish messaging and themes that promote inclusivity within our PLNs, we can create spaces that encourage learning, dialogue, and collaboration across diverse perspectives. Let us harness the power of social media to cultivate diverse and inclusive PLNs that inspire us to continuously learn, adapt, and grow in.
For me, WeChat, and TikTok are the most common social software platforms i use in my daily life, and i have my digital identity in both of them, and they are for personal use. Gmail, is the app i use to communicate for most school works, and only a few occasions i would use it for personal. Brightspace is the course website for Uvic(institutional, off course) and Youtube, TedTalk, Quizlet are the website i would visitor but not have residency on them.
Here are some Visitor & Resident Map of my group members:
(Ling Jiang)
(Xueyan Lin)
Through the group discussions this week, my group members and I find something in common of the map. We have the same purposes to use some apps, while not others. The purposes of using an app decide whether is personal or institutional, visitor or resident.
We are all agree that social media platforms such as Brightspace, WordPress, or google doc are the platforms that students use most to develop their digital identities.
When expanding their professional learning network online, people will consider data privacy and security. In this view, it will limit a PLN.
In my network, to create a digital identity/ reputation. First, to create professional profile, and then engaging in community conversations. Consistent and frequent online activity is also important to maintain the reputation. Read the comments and reply them respectfully.Establishing mutual transmission of knowledge.
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