Blog Post #3
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:
- 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
- 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
- Lupión, T. (2020, September 16). Build your digital identity. GMOL Solutions. https://gmolsolutions.com/en/blog/build-your-digital-identity/
Hi Qianhe! I like your idea of creating a professional Twitter to blog your ideas. That would definitely help with building your PLN. Also, I agree with this statement, “If you put too much effort on behave a good image in front of the employer we could lose the best part of ourselves”. Yes, you should act professionally but you should also be yourself. Putting on a fake version of yourself is not healthy and can affect your mental health if it is something that you hate doing. I did have a question for you about your VR map, you put facebook on the visitor side, do you solely use Facebook for information and news? Overall your blog was a great read, good job!
Thank you for reading my Blog! I put Facebook on the visitor side because I did often use it to lookup an interesting video or join the Uvic course community and second-hand Book Group. I mostly use Facebook to browse news and information and sometimes work with my groupmates.
Hey, Qianhe! I agree Harman, it’s super important to present an authentic version of yourself online. Of course, it is beneficial to present a polished and professional image, but there is no point to edit yourself to the point of being unrecognizable. Ideally an employer is hiring you because they connect with you and your personality.
I notice that you placed Zoom over in the institutional section. I mostly use Zoom for school and work, but I’ve also used it with friends! It’s nice that it’s a platform that’s so versatile.