In fact, it is not the first time for me to study PLN. I have studied EDCI339, which is an online course about PLN and try to make my own PLN. I have a certain understanding of PLN. In this world, everyone is constantly absorbing knowledge. Even after graduation, in the workplace, you need to have a certain understanding of the current situation of the world and professional knowledge, so PLN plays a very important role. Maybe not everyone knows about PLN, but as long as modern people have their own social software and online tools, they will create their own PLN unconsciously.
Week 2
A personal learning network is an informal learning environment that belongs to an individual. Nowadays, most of the students have entered the online courses. Students leave the school to take classes on the Internet, communicate with their classmates, and use the Internet to find the content they want to learn. But personal learning networks existed before the pandemic. Many social workers do not have time to study offline, so people learn what they want through various software and informal courses. Elizabeth Trach said that “PLN is Open collaboration without limits”. At the same time building your own PLN also requires maintaining, connecting with society and communicating with people.
Week 3
In 2004, Siemens proposed Connectivism to digitize and computerize information from all over the world through the Internet. This is to connect the information together for better and easier learning. Siemens also proposed three learning theories, Objectivism, Pragmatism and Interpretivism. These three theories are used to create teaching and learning environments. However, all three theories have limitations. Theories are limited to people, and learning theories focus only on the process of learning and ignore the value of learning itself. Each person has his or her own mode of learning, and people cannot be limited to the available avenues of learning. Each person enters many different areas of learning throughout their lives. There are informal learning opportunities throughout a person’s life, and online learning will give people more opportunities to learn. A network is defined as an entity that is connected into a whole through a layout of points and lines through which people will gain more knowledge. The web is like a community and it better brings students and teachers together to create a good learning environment. Online courses are diverse and students will use their knowledge while using the web.
Week 4
After going through a self-assessment privacy and surveillance quiz, as well as making my own VR map of digital media relationships. I discovered that I don’t value my digital identity. When I add something to my cart in the Shopper drugstore shopping app, my Instagram pushes what I add in Shopper. As a result, connections will pry into people’s privacy. At the heart of social media is privacy across the digital space. How to use social media properly is something modern people should be concerned about. Advanced technology does bring convenience to modern people, but there are also people who steal information from it. This is why the article Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement (White, 2011) mentions “‘Visitors’ and ‘Residents’ as a replacement for Prensky ‘s much‐criticised Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants”.
Week 5
According to Shelley Moore’s article, “People Without Others: Unity Through Diversity and Inclusion,” people are inclusive. People can accept and embrace diversity in education, and the future of education will change. We cannot avoid changes in education that will create an environment where every student can fit in. We can also create learning opportunities for groups of children with special needs through diversity. This is also done so that children will not have greater social differences as well as exclusion because of race, gender, wealth and poverty. Diversity and inclusion is one way to help children. For example, children with special groups, autism or disabilities, are more receptive to this learning environment. This will help more children to grow up healthy and socially connected.
Week 6
I think only after learning a certain amount of knowledge can you build up a trivial enough opinion to support your own thoughts. Not all internet knowledge is trustworthy. Many of the media we see are backed by the government or capitalists, and the news we see is misinterpreted or amplified and put in front of people’s eyes. There are no absolutes in the world, no complete fairness. When a story goes viral the first person to tell it and the last person to hear it may be completely different. People will only hear what they want to hear and say what they want to say.
Summary
The following is a combination of week8, wow & wonder, and the work from the course. The weekly readings and wow & wonder have given me a lot of knowledge and thought. I was thinking about how big the world is and how people can meet, learn from each other and get information just through the internet. People are connected by the internet, but there are definitely limitations and pros and cons to the internet. Nowadays, society is better and more inclusive, and the PLN has given many children and adults the opportunity to learn. Inclusive education, for example, gives children with disabilities a better environment to learn to integrate into the world. But the internet has many security risks, and people are accessing information and perhaps giving away their privacy at the same time. By writing my own thoughts my mind started to form a mesh to train my thinking.
My classmates helped me a lot when I interacted with them, not only with my assignments. They assigned me work so that I could catch up with them even after I was sick. During the major project I wrote about the limitations and benefits that employers may face when building a community with online tools and how to avoid misinformation. They discussed the issues with me during the meeting and were very supportive of my ideas. My group members inspired me that when people avoid misinformation in news dissemination they usually start with a brief stating the exact time, place and person, or a video interview with the person. If it’s a personal idea or analysis, you’ll add something like ‘This article is a personal opinion’ at the end of the article or the end of the video. My colleagues have helped me to open up my mind to new ideas.