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Can your PLN be used to help professional development post-course?

Absolutely. Your PLN is a tool and community that you will be able to utilize for all aspects of life. Your PLN is something that will grow and strengthen with time as you develop it. However, if you do not understand the uses and benefits of a PLN, you could negatively affect your professional development. For instance, if someone is following 3000 meme accounts on Instagram and is not participating on LinkedIn, this may decrease the usefulness of their overall PLN. By keeping in mind the proper uses of a PLN and understanding what to avoid while building your PLN, you can create something that will be invaluable to you in any avenue of life.

Can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities and on which platform does your emerging expertise get good exposure?

Personally, I haven’t used my PLN as a professional tool as of yet, but with the information I am gathering in this class I will continue to move in the right direction. I believe that LinkedIn would be the best place to showcase your emerging professional expertise as it is a solely business based social media platform. Twitter would also be a good place to showcase expertise, but I believe that there are far too many distractions on that platform that could take away from the professionalism quite significantly. Instagram would fall into the same category as Twitter because it is also an extremely distracting platform that is not designed for professionalism.

Although Instagram and Twitter may not be places that exemplify professionalism, I believe that it is still very important for you to showcase yourself in a professional manner because you have no idea who is looking at what you’re posting. These platforms are still areas that are an important indicator of someone’s character and personality.

Can you leverage your PLN in future endeavours?

Once again, yes you can leverage your PLN in many aspects of life and your PLN will only continue to be more powerful for you as time goes on. One thing I’ve noticed personally is that the more people I am connected to on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., life becomes much easier. For example, the other day I texted my friend in a panic who works at Kirby’s Source for Sports to see if I could get my skates sharpened in an emergency before my hockey practice. He answered and happily sharpened my skates for me. Or the times when you need help on a school assignment and the professor isn’t answering your emails, it is important to have made those connections with students in class to be able to reach out to for help. It is simple things like this that add up every day that make my life so much easier.

How do you ensure that you expand your PLN via social media platforms into spaces that may be outside of your comfort zone?

One way to do this is to not remove someone from your PLN if they challenge your way of thinking. Most people create PLN’s that are extremely constrained and do not delve outside of their comfort zone which can cause someone to build a completely bias way of thinking. By hearing the stories and sides from others who didn’t grow up with the same experiences as you will help you grow and expand as a human being.

References

Del Giudice, M. Social media and emerging economies (p. Ch. 5).

A Global PLN – Supporting One Another – Course YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/RiWaXNfnHAg

Explore the video provided and reflect on the themes of a PLN in a professional capacity – consider if having an audience critical of your work needs a public discussion that includes your identity and ask yourself how much of your personal identity should be connected to professional social media platforms? (Include these questions and references to both the video [Harrison Mooney] and provided reading in your response.)

In the case of Harrison Mooney, I think that it would be extremely difficult to have to deal with the situations he has dealt with. I believe that if you are professional and exceptional in your career, it should not matter what your skin colour, background or situation is. However, I believe it is important in certain situations’ to know more about a person’s background to understand the points of view that people laying out.

Community communications go beyond blogs and social media shares, how does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in public discourse – especially when addressing our differences?

Having a PLN is a very important tool in this day and age, but if they aren’t set up in the correct way, they could hinder your development. For instance, if you have a very constrained and narrow thinking PLN, you may lose the different perspectives on a situation that you might never think about. This could be detrimental to how you shape your ideologies as you are not exposed to the situations of others who are in different circumstances than you.  However, a diverse and inclusive PLN will accelerate the development of thoughts and ideas because you are including more important voices in the conversation.

How can a PLN be curated to minimize bias and expand knowledge of the lives of others?

One of the main points that have been talked about in this class is that we need to have inclusive and diverse PLN’s to allow for a wholesome understanding of the world. Having people in your circle that come from different backgrounds, are in different professions or other ways of life is extremely beneficial. It allows you to understand and view the world in a different way than people who may have tight knit communities with a more constrained domain of thinking. Not only does this allow you to expand your own knowledge base, but it allows you to be the unique voice for others to hear in your PLN.

How does the identity of who you are, fit into your PLN?

Being a straight white man, I have not experienced the hardships that many of the other individuals in the world have experienced. It is extremely important for me to explore the realities of how other people traverse the world and figure out the different angles of situations that may not be the normal way I would look at something. It is very important for me to have highly diverse and inclusive PLN to learn about the perspectives of others who have grown up in completely different situations compared to me.

Do you include professional and personal boundaries?

Obviously, it is important to have some boundaries when it comes to separating personal and professional life, however, I believe it is always best to be as authentic as possible. When you are being your most authentic, you are able to communicate with the world at a much higher level because it is the easiest to lay out your thoughts. When you are being un-authentic, you will find it is much more difficult and less effective at getting information across.

References

Meikle, G. (2016) Social Media: Communication, Sharing and Visibility (pp. 69-95).

Mooney, H. (2020). [Video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/elKNQpz0RrI

As stated by Trilling and Fadel, media literacy is the ability to understand both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes. It allows you to examine how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors. Finally, it allows you to apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical and legal issues surrounding the access and use of media. (2013) Having a PLN that values media literacy will improve the critical thinking and information sharing in the entire PLN. Having individuals who are able to understand the dynamics and trickery of the media will be a massive asset to your PLN. The media is very creative with their manufacturing of different narratives, and it can be very easy to fall victim to some of these narratives. Understanding the nuances and deception will allow individuals to get the most out of the media.

It is important to understand the way the media works because there is a lot of misinformation thrown around, and you must be able to analyze and separate the good information from the bad information. It also is important to view issues from all sides and come to an overall conclusion based on the information you have seen.

Reference

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2013). 21st century skills. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.