Blog#1

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. What does it mean to network using social media?

Generally, there are two types of intention that people have to network through social media. One is personal socializing, and one is to develop personal learning. These two purposes seem different but are already intertwining nowadays. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, people rely heavily on social networking services to communicate with others and work and learn. Under social distancing circumstances, organizations rely on social network services to circulate learning process and discussions in both working and learning environments (Rajagopal et al., 2011). The rising popularity of learning through social networks marks the new era of personalized learning. This directly motivates us to build a Personal Learning Network (PLN). PLNs allow us to expand our learning to a deeper and broader level. When we build contacts with social network services to improve our own learning with and from other professionals or educated individuals, an organized and continuous life-long learning medium is created.

The nature of the improvements that PLNs can bring to our learning experience motivates people to engage with other individuals in social networking spaces. The massive professional resources and potential knowledge can be acquired through other knowledgeable persons. Each individual in the PLNs share, provide and acquire professional knowledge and professional skills of which cannot be accessible merely through schools (Rajagopal et al., 2011)

. That is because “government systems and educational institutions change more slowly than both technology and the world of work” (Rajagopal et al, 2011). Connect and learn with and from people with like-mindedness allows people to share professional skills and knowledge in a comfortable way and in a trusted environment.

In the personal socializing sphere, public communications allow people to create a digital identity to share personal feelings and knowledge with strangers and make meaningful connections by doing so. All of the content one share and feeling express builds up an individual’s identity online, and this identity attracts people with similarity to interact and create networks. Similarly, in the personal learning sphere, public communications motivate people to share professional resources and potential knowledge that can be acquired through other professionals. These individuals may never have a chance to meet each other if public communication tools have not existed; instead, they now have the opportunity to learn from public networks because of the technology.

Nevertheless, privacy issues concern people when they use public network spaces. One can never know if malicious people disguise a digital identity with fake benevolence to earn trust, thus acquiring personal privacy information for evil intention, for instance, plagiarizing, stalking, private information abusing. Before exposing privacy-related information, we need to assess the information’s protentional risk before posting them and assessing the people we share.

References:

1.  Rajagopal, K., D. Joosten-ten Brinke, J. Van Bruggen, and P. B. Sloep. “Understanding Personal Learning Networks: Their Structure, Content and the Networking Skills Needed to Optimally Use Them”. First Monday, Vol. 17, no. 1, Dec. 2011, doi:10.5210/fm.v17i1.3559.