EDCI 338 Social Media & PL Template

Reflect on your experience in the course, your development of PLN, your use of social media platforms and networked publics.

I feel positive in EDCI-338. EDCI-338 is the most special class I have ever taken in UVic, and I can’t even find this class in BrightSpace. Because of the above reasons, I am always afraid that I will miss some assignment deadlines. In this class, for the first time, I use Mattermost as the carrier of the class. On this open-source website, I actively share what we have learned with other students. We read each other’s blogs and leave comments about our feelings. In such frequent exchanges, we have all gained growth. Especially in the final project, my team and I cooperated well and communicated smoothly. Our team finally chose to use Powtoon for our final project. Although I have never used Powtoon, with the friendly help of my team members, we finished the animation production. I never thought that I could make such an animation, which is also the result of the help of PLN. I hope I can make progress with my PLN after graduation.

Note any changes in your perspective of social media in professional settings and personal use.

Through this lesson, I learned the importance of making my own digital identity. I didn’t really like spending time on social media before, I think it’s a waste of time. Now I have changed my mindset, and building my own digital identity will benefit both study and work. Not only that, a good digital identity will have a positive impact on people. Even if you are not as good at a digital identity, you will become better in that direction in real life.

How you can pivot your PLN into your next steps

I will graduate after this semester, so I will return to China and build a new PLN. I will use what I learned in this lesson to enrich my PLN. I hope that my PLN will be connected with my work, so that I can better record my work experience. I will communicate and learn with other people through the new PLN, and hope that my new PLN will also be in China smoothly.

What does it mean to have a digital identity in your industry of choice and can your current PLN be used to help professional development post-course?

After I graduate, I should go back to China and do an internship. My digital identity should give the employee a chance to get to know me. Although I am not completely myself, I will show the best in my digital identity. At the same time, I will actively build my own personal learning network and learn from the experience of my peers. I hope that building my personal learning network can become a part of my life. I am used to spending some time every day perfecting the personal learning network, which becomes a habit. As my working age increases, this record will become a record of my growth.

As you progress through the steps of your career, can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities?

This is difficult to say, I can only say that I try my best to maintain my personal learning network. If I am unfortunately fired, this personal learning network can serve as an opportunity for me to reflect and increase the number of choices for the next job. If I am at work and get better job opportunities because of my personal learning network, I should choose to change jobs, which can also enrich my own experience and give my personal learning network more content.

Reference：

Digital Identity of Researchers and Their Personal Learning Network – Digital Identity, PLN, & Conclusion pp. 469-475 Oliveira N.R., Morgado L. (2014) UVIC LIBRARY https://tinyurl.com/yz82x2ly 

https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-07485-6.pdf

What is media literacy?

“Media literacy encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media”. In other words, media literacy is the ability to understand and analyze the information from social media, then you can retell it to other people.

Why is it important?

This is a very basic skill that can help you better understand the main points of the news, and at the same time increase your ability to analyze the news. If we do not have this ability, then all social platforms may be fake news. Many times we need to use this ability to think independently in order to get correct conclusions.

Why is it dismissed?

We often dismissed media literacy as not the result we expect, for these reasons. First of all, we have to deal with too much information every day, we can not analyze one by one, it will take too much time. We can only scan it roughly, and then come to a conclusion. Second, the information we have is not enough to draw correct conclusions. We can’t get a complete event process in the first place. We lack key information that can be analyzed, so we cannot get the correct conclusions.

How does a PLN give power to messaging for an individual or community?

First of all, PLN is an open-source platform. The information you posted above will be displayed to the public, and you can also send messages to and from a user individually. These actions will become your digital identity. Based on these functions, PLN gives the power to message for an individual or community.

How does the use of PLN raise awareness opportunities in education?

On PLN, because people share knowledge and ideas, they also promote ideology. PLN can increase educational awareness because they are a platform for raising and solving problems. At the same time, they are knowledge-sharing activities in which different people such as professionals in different fields share their skills and knowledge.

What is the role of social media in education?

Although the role of social media in education is becoming more and more important, it is still at an imperfect stage. Even if there are sufficient educational resources on social media, their management is not perfect enough. Compared with traditional education methods, many times the resources we find cannot guarantee their correctness.

Reference:

Developing Personal Learning Networks for Open and Social Learning / Alec Couros- Chapter 6 – Page 128-129 & Page 137-138 in the PDF – (Page.114-115 & Page 123-124 in original text) 

https://www.aupress.ca/app/uploads/120177_99Z_Veletsianos_2010-Emerging_Technologies_in_Distance_Education.pdf

1.How do notable individuals use social media?

I think some notable individuals use social media to show the public their way of life, but most of them gain more benefits by operating their digital identities. In general, notable individuals have two ways to use social media, publish some content by themselves or hire professional people. Compare with other people create a perfect digital for these notable individuals, the first way will make people feel more real, then shorten the distance between the followers and notable individuals. In either case, these people have a strong influence on social media, especially to their followers.

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

When I in the public eye and having a PLN, it means there have more chance that people could notice me. If I perform well on my PLN, someone who be interest to me may contact me. I think this is more important for a working person. Having a good PLN may mean more job opportunities.

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

In my opinion, there have more restrictions on building a community with online tools provided by the employer. First of all, you must make your PLN in accordance with the requirements of your boss. Many of your ideas that do not meet the requirements cannot be published in this community, even though it is great. Secondly, after you leave your job, the PLN you made may not be suitable for your new job. You have to create a new one, which means there are additional works. On the other hand, building a community with online tools provided by the employer will help you get in contact with people who work related to you. Then you can learn relevant work experience from the PLN they made.

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

After they publish the news, let the administrators review them as soon as possible. Open the comment area to make it easier for others to point out mistakes or make suggestions for improvement. Open the report function, delete the information if you receive too many reports. Block the veteran storytellers’ page to prevent the spread of false news.

References：

EDCI 338 – JODY VANCE

Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism by Martin Hirst
Chapter 6. Social Journalism and the Gig Economy pp.142

http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315401263

1. How does social media engage in advocacy communications?

With the rapid development of Internet technology, social media has gradually become an important tool for people to communicate, interact and share information. The accounts record people’s activities on social media, and these accounts play an important role in sending, disseminating, and receiving information. In my opinion, these points help social media engage in advocacy communication. For example, I didn’t pay attention to this policy before, but I got the information of “BC indoor dining shutdown” from my favorite restaurant’s Twitter. From my personal experience, I feel that social media is playing an increasingly important role.

2. How does social media use in public discourse potentially challenge advocacy communications?

This question reminds me of the former US President, Donald Trump. In my opinion, he is a good example to answer this question. Although Trump’s account was blocked by Twitter, we still could learn something from his social media experience. In the 33 months of his career, the number of posts on social media Twitter reached 11,887. Although his tweets contain a lot of unimportant content, these tweets also involve important news and policies, such as “The death of ISIS leader Baghdadi, the U.S. announcement on recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the firing of Bolton, the president’s national security affairs assistant”. On the other hand, Trump’s Twitter policy may not necessarily be passed, but many people blindly believe his news when they don’t understand the situation. For someone who followed Donald Trump, social media use in public discourse potentially challenges advocacy communications.

Reference：

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html