Community Engagement & Your PLN?

  Social media emerge citizens’ life as we all have a part live in the virtual world of the internet. Facebook and Twitter become the largest channels citizens observe information. The organization and community transfer the way citizens engage in advocacy communication from off-line to online as more influence and propagate been taken. Social media is considered an innovative tool for informing enhanced support and collaborative effort. Proponents often contribute and establish the connected community to attract more supporters to engage in the campaign which triggers the butterfly effect. Once each individual is connected and messages will immediately spread out on social media base on the rapid feature of the internet. Twitter becomes the battleground for politicians to advocate strategy and action, as a result, it owns a large group of people who have the potential to become their support. Social media have the magic for a variety of people to approach their goals. Due to the efficiency of the online platforms, citizens are engaged in all available and accessible channels freely post their advocacy and debate. Online advocacy reinforces the frequency people interact than face-to-face communication as people enable engaged in advocacy in a short time. Thus, it is important for us to recognize the real information and not being incited by much fake news. Social media need to strengthen the governance and supervision implicated by related development.  Advocacy discovers the propagation takes lower costs on digital social media than the traditional media. The Internet amplifies every detail of the negative of society which potentially challenges the advocacy communication once the public voice is loud in a certain problem like food safety. The activist will swarm in the hot sport and raise a tsunami. Most employers prohibit their staff to express interior information by enterprise police to maximumly decrease the potential impact on social media. At our PLN, we want to positively activate our public community and establish an educative environment with critical and constructive interaction without verbal aggression and discrimination.

References:

1. Lane, J. (2019, November 18). Social Media Has Changed the Advocacy Landscape Forever. Association Adviser. https://www.naylor.com/associationadviser/social-media-has-changed-the-advocacy-landscape-forever/# %7E:text=When%20used%20to%20support%20political,through%20increased%20speed%20of%20collaborative

2. Using Social Media as a Tool to Complement Advocacy Efforts by J. Taylor Scott, J’Vonnah Maryman in GJCPP Volume 7 Issue 1 2016. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.gjcpp.org/en/article.php?issue=21&article=121

PLN in Practice

How would you create a PLN prior to engaging a social media campaign on a topic of your choice?

  To engaging a social media campaign, I made a plan step by step. First, set the goal and theme. You need to figure out want content you want to discuss and argue. What you want to engage and involve, it could your interesting topic like environment issue even political election. Second, Look up your target social media campaign. You should aware of the target audience who want to touch more information about the campaign and what attractive strategy and layout you want to use of your PLN to drive the emotion. Use your brilliant idea to inspire your audience to interact and socialize on social and within your PLN. Encourage them to like, share, comment on your post and make them be a part of it! Increase exposure by creating photos, demos, presentations, prototypes of your thought definitely promote to impress and spread to the public.

References:

1. Barnhart, B. (2021b, January 25). Building your social media marketing strategy for 2021. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/

2. Eckstein, M. (2021, February 4). Social Media Engagement: Why It’s Important and How To Do It Well – The Buffer Blog. Buffer Library. https://buffer.com/library/social-media-engagement/

Your PLN and Inclusion

How diverse is your existing PLN?
In recent years, the keywords of diversity and inclusiveness frequently appear especially in the field of learning. Diversity and inclusion play a significant role in PLN. I had a hard experience recently. I have a group project in my EDCI335 class this semester. And we separated the work and finished it on time. However, one of our group members is not satisfied with the grade and he left the group without a word. I conclude that the reason why he left the group is we did not behave the diversity within the group and he is not inclusive to others. I feel very sad about that. I hope the learning and cooperation within the group could be more inclusive and I will work more to motivate and engage connections between people in the community.

In your PLN, are you learning from various voices, or are you the loudest in the room?
In my PLN, I am learning from various voices but not I am not the loudest in the room. The loudest in the room must not be the most knowledgeable. I am a good listener and I made lots of friends. They enjoy talking with me and I love people telling the stories as well. I always conclude the experience which I collect from others’ stories and take it into my life. Thus, I rather become a learner than a leader. After the accumulation of the various experiences or voices, I might become the loudest( a leader or a teacher) afterward.

Do you participate in a silo of information sharing (similar themes or a wide range of interests)?
An information silo means you are limited to exchange information in a small group of people. The best way to develop and comprehend the sharing of information is bravely express and expound your idea. I understand most people do not like to do the presentation or speak in front of lots of people. If you don’t speak, you never notice your vulnerability and change it.

How can you use a diverse PLN to broaden your views of inclusion?
I strive to make the PLN as different as possible, respect and give play to the characteristics of each person in the network. Diversity is to realize the differentiation of people in the network, and inclusiveness is to create an inclusive environment for them with differences so that each person can comfortably contribute the maximum potential to the network. Each of us can choose our own skills, have our own voice, speak our own language, represent different cultures, and see the world from different perspectives and ways. Diversity and inclusion will subvert people’s thinking and bring unprecedented innovation.

In your professional setting of choice, do you think inclusion is actively embraced?
In my professional computer science, I think inclusion is actively embraced. The computer design and any thought of the goal of the design aim to let users easily understand and operate the product. Computer Engineers who develop software reduced the redundant process in order to improve people’s work efficiency. The inclusiveness reflects in that the software users could be very different. They might have a different race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, generation, disability, personality type, thinking style (Mascarenhas, M. 2020). In this case, I believe inclusiveness is comprehensively adopted.

What is the learning outcome of your PLN and how are you ensuring your exposure to diversity and inclusion?
In the Youtube video, Shelley Moore takes bowling as an example. She mentions that when she plays bowling, there are always two pins left after the shot. She metaphor two pins as the kid needs the most support and the kid needs the most challenge. The diverse PLN aims to find a path to enable help all the learner without missing any one of them. It inspired me that awareness of the different types of people is important. If you don’t pay attention to the unimpressive person in the network, you will never know what brilliant idea he/she would present.

How has your thinking about inclusion and PLN evolved after reviewing the videos and readings?
After reviewing the videos and readings, I think inclusion is the most valuable aspect of PLN. It is important to bring awareness to unconscious bias and discuss it in the PLN. I would make a fairly and equally communicated workplace in my PLN. Avoid bias and impolite comments existing but maintain the voices from different perspectives.s When we recognize the differences and learn to respect and value each individual from irrelevant backgrounds the power of diversity and inclusion will be released and its benefits reflected.

References:

1.Chow, C. (2021, January 3). 15 Ways to Improve Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace. SocialChorus. https://socialchorus.com/blog/15-ways-to-improve-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-workplace/

2. Moore, S., Miller,J. (2021, February 07). EDCI 338 A01 Week 5 A Conversation with Shelley Moore. February 09, 2021, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGx0ejnMLVc&feature=youtu.be

3. Shelley Moore: Transforming Inclusive Education. (2016, April 4). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtUlU8MjlY&feature=emb_title

4. Mascarenhas, M. (2020, May 29). Diversity & Inclusion: 5 Lessons from Top Global Companies. Aperian Global. https://www.aperianglobal.com/leaders-diversity-inclusion-5-lessons-top-global-companies/

Personal Digital Identity vs Professional Digital Identity

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

The most popular platforms students are currently using to develop their professional network may include Zoom, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack. Zoom is the most common online streaming tool for students to watch lectures. Facebook is a nice communication tool that allows you to make friends with upper-grade students or join the specific course community. Then LinkedIn is a professional website platform to develop a professional career. Slack is a professional engineer tool to efficiently manage and organize group projects. Students interested in computer science are often using GitHub, LinkedIn, or Facebook to cooperate with professional people. We could share experience, skills, and cognition on those platforms.

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

Students have a variety of choices to expand their professional learning network. From my perspective, I spend most of my study time on Facebook, Stack Overflow and GitHub. Stack overflow is a platform to discuss and solve the coding problem. Every time I am stuck with my coding assignment, I can post the problem and lots of people are active to help with it. GitHub is also a professional community for software engineers. I have fun finding lots of open source code repositories. On Facebook. I want to share my value of the world with people who have the same idea as me. There, I can always get rid of the pressure about finding a great job, getting a college degree and finishing housework. In the PLN platform, everyone is respectful to share their specialty, and visitors will leave comments to point out the mistake and improve your thinking, talking, and writing. I like the way using logic to analyze and expound a fact in the PLN’s community.

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

Social media is a great space to create a digital identity/ reputation. I would like to sign up for a professional Twitter account and start blogging my ideas. Social media has become a potential place to get new commercial opportunities. You can put your interesting articles, videos or the photo of your favorite foods. Design the digital identity can solidify your thinking and connect with a broader community. To make a better environment, I will turn up the comment ability. In this way, participants can turn it into a conversation and build connections, and get new ideas. Moreover, I will allocate my spare time to make sure I interact with the public group in the community and give through-provoking feedback.

•  Consider what a local employer would do if you applied for a job with them – can they search the content, is it of benefit to the career path, does it hinder the opportunity of employment?

They use online test platforms like Github and Leecode to value candidates’ abilities. The employers are able to see the performance on the PLN’s account in order to consider moving to the next step. For employees, social media has the power to help them grow business. You may want to build your tag or your personal brand that proves your project and identity. Tell the employee what you can offer and attract their intention by images or your PLN’s design because the visual effect catches people’s eyes. If you did well both in your study career and your life career, it is a valuable path to show yourself to the public. The original intention of digital identity is to show personality. If you put too much effort into behaving a good image in front of the employer we could lose the best part of ourselves. Thus, how to balance the public and private is important. My advice is that creating one professional digital identity and a private digital identity. You would avoid sharing the negative blogging on your digital social media account or make the other employer have thought of the negative side of you. In this way, you can even complain about the underpaid and your boss in the private digital identity and not get into trouble.

References:

1. Gray, K. (2019, May 16). Leveraging Social Media to Build a Digital PLN. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/leveraging-social-media-build-digital-pln
2. Trach, E. (2019, April 18). Personal Learning Network (PLN) Benefits, Tools, and Tactics. Schoology. https://www.schoology.com/blog/personal-learning-network-pln-benefits-tools-and-tactics
3.  Lupión, T. (2020, September 16). Build your digital identity. GMOL Solutions. https://gmolsolutions.com/en/blog/build-your-digital-identity/