Month: November 2023

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.