PLN & Education

How does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse?

Advantages we get from PLN in education discourse:

1. The limitless space for sharing, receiving and education. As Baker mentioned in the interview, for a deeper understanding of the indigenous community and their culture, it’s an effective way to present some authentic one-hand stories on social media platforms to educate people with the original mindset. Within such a diverse and open environment, there will be more inspiration involved in PLN.
2. The technical advance by which can expand our connections without limit of space and time. This benefit, in my opinion, can also be explained by the term: open teaching. “Open teaching is described as the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social.” (Veletsianos, 2010). Education is a two-way interaction within leaner and educator, an application of profound PLN can highly increase the experience on both ends. Students can be more informed by multiple digital approaches and comprehend better of the teaching material. Also, teachers and educators can get instant feedback from students in order to improve along the way. This is just one of the many advantages of PLN in education.

Disadvantages or things that hinder us from PLN in education discourse:

Too much information to digest and manage. As we all know, a structured PLN provides a massive amount of informative connections. Taking control of this amount of information can be overloaded.

It’s difficult to avoid negative messages. Baker has referred to his experience from time to time that when the topic is about his profession and he has to go deeper regarding a negative interaction, he felt the vulnerability.

How does the use of PLN raise awareness opportunities in education?

If an individual or a group can fully taking advantage of PLN, there will be a lot of potential opportunities. Particularly talking about education, there are more ways or approaches that the educators can attract learners from all around the world but not just local students. A ‘networked teacher’ has more expanse to spread or present his educational content within a PLN which includes Microblogging, digital fora, video conferences, etc (Veletsianos, 2010). Thus, providing teaching opportunities for educators and learning opportunities for learners.

What is the role of social media in education?

The role of social media can be an assistant in education. Social media allows teachers to contact students but also share information. The social media platforms that provide blogs or post options can also be used to lead or guide students on different themes and topics that ongoing within the course. It’s also a good tool for update information. Overall, social media can be a very up-to-date platform playing an assisting role in education.

What are some problems with social media communications in education settings?

It can be less formal and professional if people use social media to communicate, there are also a lot of distractions such as unrelated celebrity news on social media that may interrupt the learning and teaching process.

References

• Miller, Jesse. “EDCI 338 Brad Baker.” YouTube, 5 Mar. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy63SmEpvCw.

• Veletsianos, George. “Developing Personal Learning Networks for Open and Social Learning.” Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, Au P, 2010, pp. 109-128.