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This week we discussed about the following questions.

• What is media literacy?
• Why is it important?
• Why is it dismissed?
• Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN?
• Why media literacy and factual information can create conflict?
• What is the benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy?

Media literacy refers to the ability to understand and use media information, such as using AI to create content, flexibly using social media for communication, and searching for the knowledge one needs on media platforms. Media literacy is important because it can increase the ways to access knowledge, enhance people’s ability to distinguish media content, and thus identify and resist false and harmful information. Nowadays, we need to face a massive amount of media information every day. If we lack media literacy, we may be misled and even become victims and disseminators of online rumors, fraud, and violence.

Generally speaking, the reason why media literacy is dismissed is that some people lack awareness of the impact of media and are not familiar with media technology and rules, so they may not be aware of the necessity of improving media literacy.

One aspect of improving media literacy is to enable people to more accurately judge factual information. But Media literacy and factual information can create conflicts. This is because people may abuse media literacy and use their technical abilities to misinterpret factual information. For example, some media producers, in order to cater to the preferences of the audience, will use AI technologies such as image processing, sound transformation, etc. to forge information and create false friends to deceive people. These technologies make it difficult for people to distinguish between authenticity and pose a threat to their personal and property safety.

Our PLN (Personal Learning Network) should aim for varied views, instead of the factual consensus, for the following reasons:

• Varied views can broaden our horizons and allow us to understand different cultures and ways of thinking, while factual consensus may lead to rigid thinking, allowing us to accept only one or a few viewpoints.
• Varied views can stimulate our critical thinking and creativity, while factual consensus may lead to our thinking inertia, making us unwilling to question or challenge existing viewpoints.
• Vried views can enhance our communication and collaboration, allowing us to establish trust and respect with different people, while factual consensus may lead to conflicts in our thinking, making it difficult for us to communicate or cooperate with different people.

The benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy is that media literacy enables us to think critically, interpret and criticize media information correctly, understand the strengths and limitations of the media, consciously resist negative information, and possess the ability to create independent media, improve ourselves, and progress together with the society.

In this week, we discussed the following questions.

• 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?
• How do educators create discourse?
• What is the role of social media in education?
• What are some problems with social media communications in educational settings?

PLN can enable educators to easily access resources and information, share knowledge, and provide feedback on results. It can also promote communication among scholars, stimulate new creativity, and promote educational progress. However, as the quality of PLN depends on individuals, the acquisition of knowledge by each individual also depends on themselves. If educators are not inclusive, PLN can actually lead to their ideological blockade. Furthermore, maintaining PLN may be a new type of work pressure that interferes with the daily work of educators.

Generally, educators can explain their methods and achievements through publishing papers, reports, etc., and can also use social media to share their practices and insights.

Social media can provide flexible communication methods and spaces for education, allowing everyone to attend classes, share knowledge, and give feedbacks anytime and anywhere. The classroom videos recorded by educators can be reused, reducing the workload of educators. At the same time, their videos can also be seen by more people, so social media provides rich resources for education.

Not all educational resources are effective considering the time and knowledge updates. The copyright protection of educational resources is also an important issue. Anyone may plagiarize and publish the results of others on the social media platforms. The authors would find that the process of safeguarding their rights is also quite troublesome. Therefore, it is best for social media platforms to have more effective restrictions on publishing content.

Based on the above content, we are going to discuss further about the topic.

• Which social media platforms are beneficial in education?

Many mainstream social media platforms are beneficial in education, such as TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. As long as these platforms are legitimate, respecting laws and regulations, protecting intellectual property rights, and prohibiting rumors, discrimination, insults, etc., they can all be beneficial to education. We can communicate with educators on these platforms, try new content and perspectives, share knowledge with everyone, and achieve common progress.

• When working with the vulnerable sector, how does social media fit into professionalism and regulations?

The original intention of creating social media is to facilitate people’s communication and promote social participation, benefiting humanity. From a professional perspective, social media platforms should consider promoting the social participation of vulnerable groups, creating a safe and convenient way to provide services to the groups, as they may need platforms and channels more to obtain convenient communication methods and social assistance. In terms of regulations, respecting the personality and dignity of vulnerable groups and prohibiting all discrimination and insults against indigenous people, gender, and religious beliefs are laws promulgated by many countries.

In the video “In the Public-Eye – Social Media and Evening News [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfcXgKLzOVM]”, Sophie Lui discussed topics such as her career, the importance of face-to-face impressions, and the benefits and drawbacks of social media. She said she prefered to use Twitter, which is used to discover people with common interests, and Facebook is used to share personal life. Actually, I think everyone may have a similar usage experience. We can start our discussion today with the following questions.

How do notable individuals use social media?

I think the majority of notable individuals use social media are the same as us (non notifiable), but they would spend more time and effort maintaining connections with fans, peers, and other stakeholders. They would use social media to promote their works and activities.

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

It can expand one’s influence and reputation more conveniently and quickly. We can obtain more information and resources more quickly, and make more friends and partners.

Building community with online tools provided by the employee can be limited, what are the received restrictions and benefits?

(Restrictions) Network work will be monitored and managed, and there will be no privacy in this environment. Our work efficiency may be affected by the performance of the tool.
(Benefits) Community with online tools allows us to work anytime and anywhere. It also promotes communication and collaboration between teams.

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

I think we need to choose the appropriate platform at first, and join relevant communities according to our own needs. The content shared in the community is often informative. At the same time, we need to have critical thinking and not blindly believe in the content on the internet. Finally, it is about inclusion, which requires maintaining an open attitude, learning knowledge from various groups, and continuously improving ourself.

How do those, who are vegetable storesellers, minimize the risk of sharing misinformation?

Before sharing information, they will thoroughly investigate and verify the authenticity of the content and its source. The shared information will also strive to ensure clear wording and clear explanations of viewpoints. After sharing, they will promptly review and reply to comments to avoid any other omissions.

From the above questions, we can summarize how to curate our social media with a critical public audience. Simply put, we need to consider our target audience and the platform we use, find ways to attract more audience, ensure the accuracy and authenticity of our information, and promptly follow and respond to comments.

What are the risks for a public figure or person in a position of trust (educator, lawyer, government official)?

(Risk) Notable individuals may face online violence and slander. If the speech is careless or inappropriate, it is more likely to be questioned and affect reputation. If information leakage occurs, it may endanger personal safety.
The advantage is that media can be used to expand influence, communicate more effectively with fan audiences, interact and collaborate more effectively with peers, and use media space to obtain and share valuable information, improving personal abilities.

How to address negative replies and critiques that reflect your personal values and employee’s social media policy?

When using social media, to some extent, we may receive some negative comments, especially for women, and even receive a lot of harassing information. I think we can directly block these types of messages and not let them have a negative impact on our lives. At the same time, we also need to build our own psychology, enhance our ability to resist stress and negative news. Of course, we may also gain useful knowledge from negative comments and improve ourselves.

A diverse and inclusive PLN enables us to learn about different cultures, come into contact with a wide range of perspectives, enrich our understanding of the world, and enhance our quality and creativity through social media sharing. At the same time, we can establish trust relationships with network members, creating a positive and efficient learning environment. In this way, in social media sharing, we will also continuously enhance our influence, and our opinions and content can attract more attention and be more meaningful.

How does social media engage communications?

Social media promotes online interactions between people to engage communications. Generally speaking, there are some ways to engage communications:

1. Encourage the posting of attractive content: likes, reposts, and comments can all encourage people to share more informative and entertaining content.
2. Encourage positive comments: Anyone can access and comment on content they are interested in. Publishers can reply to others’ comments or report comments that have adverse effects on society.
3. Recommend content related to personal interests: When people visit social media platforms, they generally passively receive some recommended content that is targeted at you, which can more attract you to engage communications.
4. Encourage participation and creation of topic communities or tags: Anyone can participate and create topic communities that they are interested in anytime and anywhere. In these communities, people will come into contact with many people with common interests, or when posting content, bring topic tags, which can also attract people with similar interests to communicate.
5. Allow to initiate competitions: Anyone can initiate a voting competition or other competitions with more challenging and encouraging mechanisms, which can increase everyone’s participation and communication interest.

How does social media challenge communications?

Social media challenges communications in many ways, for example:

1. People are constantly bombarded by a large amount of information on social media, and they will feel very tired of such things.
2. There is a large amount of negative and erroneous information in social media, which affects people’s daily lives.
3. Social media is also crowded with many types of advertising information, which will reduce people’s interest in using social media.
4. Social media does not possess secrecy, and protecting personal privacy, intellectual property rights, and respecting diversity are important and serious challenges.

Is social media inclusive?

Social media is potentially inclusive. The inclusiveness of social media means that anyone can create and access diverse content. This is also advocated and encouraged by social media services. However, this platform may alienate users with disabilities or special needs, as these groups may face various difficulties in practice and are unable to participate in social media. In addition, if people themselves do not truly respect diversity, it is natural for social media communication to generate stereotypes about certain groups or events, ostracizing and belittling others.

Does my PLN amplify the views of others?

I think my PLN is inclusive. I tend to amplify others’ perspectives to a certain extent. I generally do not consider the cultural background of network members, respect different opinions and experiences, share and discuss other people’s content, encourage everyone’s (positive) creativity, and praise others’ valuable content.

The policies of employer social media communication expectations？

According to my research, there are generally the following contents in employee social media communication expectations:

1. Declare the role and responsibility of using professional social media.
2. Clarify the employer’s values and goals.
3. Remind social media users of what content needs to be kept confidential and clarify the consequences of violating confidentiality.
4. Prohibit any illegal, discriminatory, defamatory or other content.
5. Require respect for the privacy and intellectual property rights of others.
6. Disclaimer for personal behavior.

How to better use social media to build PLN?

We first need to know our interests and goals, and find communities on social media platforms. When creating identities and profiles, use user names related to interests to enrich your resume. Pay attention to experts, topic tags, and topic communities in your field of interest. Actively participate in topic discussions and interactions through likes, comments, and sharing. Use social media tools such as Pinterest to organize harvested information and resources.

I believe we can start by understanding what we are truly interested in and what content we would be more proactive in participating in. On social media platforms, we can find related topics and active users by searching for keywords, follow these users, and thus find related groups or organizations. Meanwhile, as we regularly participate in topic activities, such as commenting and replying to some posts, liking, sharing, posting dynamics, etc., we will continuously find new companions, experts and peers in the field. In this way, we are starting a PLN prior. Then, we need to build a healthy and growing PLN, and we will discuss it from the following two aspects.

Building a reputation and trust in a connected culture can be difficult, so how can we build a network of individuals who are dynamic, reliable, and participatory?

Firstly, we need to start from ourselves and ensure that we can honestly share our views and goals. For example, if the content we post is inconsistent, it is easy for others to think that we are fake or an official account maintained by multiple people. Naturally, our PLN will not be reliable. Secondly, we need to look at high-quality content and try to post high-quality and high-level content. It is not easy to maintain a good reputation. Only by paying attention to the reliability and quality of our content every time we post something can we attract peers with the same capabilities and effectively expand our PLN. Thirdly, it would be best if we could support and encourage peers in the network. When we first start learning a skill, we are all seeking guidance and help. Therefore, we should give positive feedback to the network so that fresh blood can be integrated into our network. Finally, respect the results within the network. When we participate in network activities, we need positive feedback to gain passion for continuous creation, and others also need it. We should respect other people’s labor results and encourage each other to grow during the interaction process.

How can we leverage healthy relationships from our PLN for growth?

Firstly, when cooperating with like-minded people in the network, it can greatly improve ourselves. For example, we can invite some experts or peers to participate in projects or campaigns under a certain topic together. While sharing resources and technologies, we will also gain knowledge from others. I think this is the fastest way to improve ourselves. Secondly, we also need to consciously evaluate the PLN continuously. For example, you can use some analysis tools to record results and feedbacks from the PLN to evaluate its value. After a certain period of time, summarizing results and feedbacks can gain more creative confidence, and truly like the topic so that you can continue to grow from it.

In this blog, I want to discuss how social media helps me establish messaging and themes that are inclusive and diverse. This will cover the following questions.

• How diverse is your PLN (Personal Learning Network)?
• Are you learning from a variety of diverse voices and are you expanding your understanding of the views of others?
• What is the learning outcome of your PLN and how are you ensuring your exposure to diversity and inclusion?
• How likely individuals are going to continue with their created content and their network?
• Are the skills that they developed applicable in professional practices?

Week Five – Your Personal Learning Networks and Inclusion

As shown by my Visitor & Resident Map in the previous post, my PLN covers a variety of platforms, where I can receive massive amounts of information. On these platforms, there are people with different beliefs, from many countries or various industries, communicate with each other. I think this is what is called Inclusion. Everyone, regardless of their different considerations and beliefs, can participate in discussions on the same event, participate in the same project, or play the same game on the same platforms, etc. In these environments, we should try our best to respect the views of others.

I have learned from a variety of diverse voices and expanded my knowledge from the others. Once, while playing a game that involved some indigenous cultures, I realized through discussions in the indigenous community that this rather comical game was a desecration of indigenous culture. With reading more reports and getting more knowledge about indigenous culture from the learning network, I understood more about indigenous cultures and the importance of protecting the art creatings.

From PLN, I have learned a lot of knowledge, and many problems I encounter in life can be solved through PLN. I can solve small issues encountered in project quickly through searching on the internet. By collaborating with others, some skills have also been rapidly improved. I have also received some job opportunities through interesting communications and activities in different communities. Overall, PLN can help me expand my knowledge, improve my learning efficiency, and gain spiritual support and new job opportunities. I try to increase my exposure to diversity and inclusion through the following ways.

• Respect the uniqueness of every person, group, and idea.
• Learn multiple languages and cultures, and use various learning resources.
• Participate in organizations or associations dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusiveness.

Generally speaking, if a person feels valuable and fulfilled about their own PLN, and is able to establish good relationships with others, they are more likely to continue creating content and maintaining the network. So, we can judge a person’s likelihood of maintaining PLN based on how much positive or negative feedback or gains they have received from PLN.

There are lots of skills can be learned from PLN, such as communication ability, collaboration ability, innovation ability, critical thinking, cultural literacy, etc. These skills are very important and useful in professional practice, as they can help a person adapt to the constantly changing work environment, improve work efficiency, and collaborate with different people. Therefore, through PLN, an individual can not only improve their knowledge level, but also improve essential skills in their career development.

What digital platforms are students currently using to develop their professional network?

With the development of Web, students can use a variety of digital platforms to develop their professional network. These include professional networking sites like LinkedIn, professional sharing and collaboration platforms like Kaggle and Github, as well as social media platforms such as WeChat, Twitter, Instagram, ans so on.

What could the student consider in expanding their professional learning network?

I think we should start with finding our professional goals. We can seek out industry or academic leaders and communities in the field of our interests, and seek for some advices for directions. Then we can improve our professional skills and participate in professional networks through online platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Github, and so on. Additionally, we should actively collaborate with peers or experts to complish some project or solve some issues. Because building connections with professionals is the most efficient way to improve ourselves and gain opportunities.

How does data privacy and security limit and/or promote a PLN?

Data privacy and security is one of the most important factors to promote a healthy PLN. We should be cautious about sharing our personal information online. When we start to use some online platforms, we must remember to carefully read and set privacy options. This would promot trustworth, safe and secure interactions. A unsafe environment would weaken our enthusiasm for online activities. However, data privacy and security restricts the operational range of online sharing. For example, we cannot share work experience in confidential projects. Hence, it also limit the growth of PLN.

In your network, how can you create a digital identity/ reputation?

Here is my Visitor & Resident Map. Let’s focus on the Resident mode in the Map. I would represent my professional skills and techniques, and connect with industry professionals by LinkedIn, School Blog, Kaggle and Github. I would participate in online projects shared in Kaggle and Github to improve my professional skills, ans sharing with others. I would also follow industry leaders and get the news in Twitter, Instagram and FaceBook. And connect with them within those platforms and also WeChat and email.

Finally, a employer might assess my social media presence to know more about my character, professionalism, and suitability for the job. If my social media presence shows a positive and optimistic professional digital identity, my chance of being considered would be large. It is important for us to be careful of our online activities. Be sure to prohibit unprofessional behavior and posting inappropriate content.

What is a digital identity?

Digital identity is an identity that develops through social interactions by the use of online platforms and communication tools (Jawed et al., 2019). It is the self-concept of an individual’s emotions, attributes, beliefs, experiences, morals, and other aspects expressed in the digital world. When people create a social media account or establish a digital certificate, they are creating a digital identity. By maintaining your account, for example updating personal profile, posting an article, sharing a story, or a photo, you enrich your digital identity. Digital identity can usually be divided into professional identity and private identity, with different purposes but many similarities in the maintenance approaches.

How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?

Because the establishment goals of personal and professional digital identities are different, their impact on social media usage naturally also varies. On the one hand, personal digital identity usually focuses on expressing personal emotions, such as commenting on a movie or a short video, liking a photo of a puppy, and simply speaking about today’s mood, etc; Or focuses on sharing one’s own life experiences, such as posting a blog about one’s experience in some event, respond to others’ questions based on one’s experience, etc; Or focuses on communicating with friends, family members, or like-minded individuals who have never met before, such as discussing opinions on a certain forum, posting a barrage on a video, agreeing on things through private messages or emails, and so on. In private online communication, people are usually relaxed and stress free, and the opinions of others on what we post are often less important than the fact that we post. Most of the content of private online communication may not have much information and may not be helpful to oneself or others, but the emotional value of this process is significant, and people gain benefits beyond economic benefits during this process. On the other hand, professional identity is closely related to an individual’s career. We establish our professional reputation through online communication, showcase our professional knowledge, participate in professional meetings and discussions, collaborate with colleagues on a project, and so on. In the online professional communication process, we attach great importance to the opinions of others, emphasizing professionalism, the quality and accuracy of the content what we intend to post.

How do digital identities converge in networked publics – what are the impacts and/or benefits?

The convergence of digital identities is usually due to the interconnected nature of online platforms and the blurring of the boundary between personal and professional fields. Firstly, with the increase of social media apps, more and more people are maintaining an active online status on multiple platforms. For example, a person may have multiple accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc. These accounts may be related to each other, and the same post may appear on multiple platforms at the same day. Due to the association between personal social media platforms and professional platforms, the boundary between personal and professional fields can easily become blurred. Secondly, people are increasingly valuing the authenticity of online communication, encouraging people to showcase their true experiences and perspectives in a professional environment, which also allows for the integration of personal and professional identities. Finally, the online public provides individuals with a large number of communication opportunities, allowing them to establish a network of relationships that spans both personal and professional domains through the internet. In this process, personal and professional identities also converge. People discussing a certain job on professional platforms are prone to running to other personal platforms to continue discussing content related to work for various reasons, such as wanting to share this experience.

The convergence of digital identities has several benefits. It allows individuals to more freely showcase their diverse skills, thereby gaining more job opportunities or reputation. For example, we often find that our abilities demonstrated in other fields have a significant impact on a particular job in our current field. It makes communication more convenient for people. We often use private networks to achieve professional goals or establish personal relationships in a certain professional environment. The convergence of identities facilitates cooperation and communication with others, facilitates us to discover more like-minded friends, and obtains more support and encouragement.

References

Jawed, S., Mahboob, U., & Yasmeen, R. (2019). Digital professional identity: dear Internet! who am I?. Education for Health: Change in Learning & Practice, 32(1).

What does it mean to a network using social media?

It means actively engage and connect with others on social media platforms. Networking on social media typically involves activities such as building a personal profile, connecting with others, sharing content with others, participating in some topics, joining in online groups or communities, and so on. Utilizing social media platforms, people can expand their social or professional circle, build relationships and maintain connections, and communicate with collaborators or potential customers.

How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?

Firstly, people use network to build relationships and maintain connections with others, and look out for common ground with others (Rajagopal et al. 2012). When we find netizens who have something in common online, we will look forward to communicating with them every day. The desire for social interaction and connection is one of the most important motivations.

Secondly, people can share or acquire information from network publics. Network publics provide the opportunity to learn massive things, develop skills, and stay updated on various interesting topics. People can gain lots of professional opportunities from network. Network publics can support one’s development and growth of professionals’ careers and continuously support professionals’ life–long learning (Rajagopal et al. 2012).

Thirdly, people can express and show their talents, thoughts, and abilities through the Internet, and then receive feedback from others, thereby gaining more incentives to improve themselves. While satisfying the public recognition needed by humans, it also establishes their own influence, which is also very helpful for personal career development and so on.

Finally, I think most people will participate in online public activities for entertainment and entertainment purposes. Gaming platforms and social media provide countless engaging activities and content, and people will unconsciously spend a lot of time on them. For example, many people get up every day with the motivation of seeing if there are any new posts from the people or animals they follow. There are also many people who stay up late every day because they want to clear a certain game.

What are the risks & rewards of public communications?

Risks:

One of the main risks of public communications is the threaten to privacy (Boyd and Danah, 2012). We actively or passively share our information, photos, stories, etc. every day. Sometimes, while actively sharing our own information, we may unconsciously share others’ information as well. For example, when we share a selfie on the internet, the background will include more or less the figure of passers-by and the appearance of surrounding buildings. Moreover, with the rapid development of AI technology, many large-scale AI tools learn human thinking and creation by crawling large amounts of content on the Internet. These training data contain massive personal information, which may one day be exposed to more people through the decompilation of AI tools. Moreover, threats to personal privacy may lead to more serious personal security issues. After people post personal information online, it is difficult to prevent some people with ulterior motives from discovering their whereabouts and movements.

Secondly, sometimes unconscious misrepresentations on the Internet can affect the reputation, interpersonal relationships, public image, and mental health of individuals or groups. When communication errors occur, negative messages will inevitably spread rapidly, causing a very negative impact on the public. In particular, when online violence occurs, it can have an insidious effect on individuals or organizations that cannot be erased.

Finally, the fast spreading nature of the network may also cause some legal issues. When some sensitive or confidential information is inadvertently released, or when some defamatory or false information is released as a means of personal emotional venting, it can lead to serious legal consequences.

Rewards:

Fast public communications can effectively convey messages to a wide audience for inspiring others, or to target audience for gaining opportunities of collaboration or business activities. Public communications facilitate people’s connections with stakeholders, customers, or the public, providing more opportunities to build trust and credibility. It can help individuals or organizations develop their careers, establish or strengthen social influence.

People or government can guide public opinion and behavior through public communications, which can have a positive impact on social change. It allows individuals or organizations to advocate for causes, promote change, or raise awareness.

References

Boyd, Danah. “Networked privacy.” Surveillance & society 10.3/4 (2012): 348.
Rajagopal, Kamakshi, et al. “Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them.” First Monday 17.1 (2012): 1-12.