• Explore the video provided and reflect on the themes of a PLN in a professional capacity – how does a PLN give power to messaging for an individual or community?

We look at Brad Baker, an Aboriginal man who is an educational leader in his community. He is very well educated and advocates for the indigenous culture. He is fond of Social media and shared his stories about PLN highlighting how he likes it because there will be no discrimination of race and how it provides a fair platform. He likes twitter since it has allowed Indigenous leaders to “get their story and truth out there, while mainstream media only tell what they want to tell”. It gives him a voice and provides him an opportunity to get his story told. 

  • Community communications go beyond blogs and social media shares, how does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse?

It is beneficial but can also cause some difficulties in education. A perfect example is with Covid-19 schools around the world have switched to online. It has caused many hardships for students as it takes away the face to face learning. Some students don’t have laptops or computers. It could also be very hard for some students to learn online. Cheating has become a big factor as kids are all at home and are good with computers, when they get back to in person learning they won’t have the skills they were supposed to have. It’s hard for teachers as they don’t have that real life interaction, it’s hard to administer tests and help every student and offer a good education.

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

Social media can bring problems and miscommunications that wouldn’t happen face to face. It is common when reading something online it is easy to be misinterpreted because it’s hard to know what context it is in. Especially in some areas of social media we shorten words and use acronyms there is no punctuation to help us at all. 

Reference: 

Miller, J. (2021). “EDCI 338 – BRAD BAKER.” YouTube, 06 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy63SmEpvCw.