How would you create a PLN before engaging a social media campaign on a topic of your choice?

I find that my PLN really helps me learn or comprehend topics better. When doing this week’s reading, I came across this quote that really spoke to me on this topic “A PLN should never be a one-way street. It should be a way for you to help others as well. The more you contribute to your PLN, the more others will want to help you.” (Woods, 2013). The reason this quote from Bianca’s article really spoke to me on this topic is because it is important to know who you are associating within a PLN on social media. Creating a PLN prior to engaging on social media gives you the opportunity to teach others your learnings and opinion on a topic. This also works the other way as they will be influencing you to listen to their opinion on a certain topic. This is why I am aware of the PLN that I am engaging with on social media as certain groups will engage on topics that are commonly discussed inside their PLN.

Building a reputation and trust in a connected culture can be difficult, how are you building a network of individuals who are dynamic, reliable, & participatory.

Building a reliable PLN is an important thing for me. Making sure the members of my PLN can be at times difficult as online I am constantly interacting with strangers. An example of interacting with strangers in my PLN would be in this course through mattermost. On mattermost, I am communicating and collaborating with countless university students who I have never met, nor will I probably meet. Through mattermost and these blog posts, they give me feedback on the content I can improve, and for the most part, I can honestly say I agree with all of the feedback they have given me thus far. By interacting with people who are also university students, I can trust their feedback and input on topics so I can expand my knowledge of certain topics and grow my PLN. From this weeks reading, Bianca said “You never know when an insight from economics, biology, theater, or even something random such as marathon running or coffee bean roasting can help you see things in new ways”. (Woods, 2013). Ensuring the information I am learning within my PLN is crucial as the feedback from a fellow university student will by far outweigh the opinion of someone I bump into on the street.

Are you leveraging healthy relationships from your PLN for growth?

Throughout this semester as I have been actively using mattermost, I have had the chance to create relationships with the members of this course. By actively communicating with the other members of my group, I believe that I have been able to create a healthy and reliable PLN. The reason I am attaining this healthy relationship is that everyone on mattermost has also been active and has therefore shown how they care about our learning as a whole. Without the members of my PLN on mattermost being active, there is no way that I can trust their opinions as I have no way of knowing if they know what they are even talking about. Along with this, it is refreshing to see those members who have been keeping up with their weekly blog posts to see they are keeping up with what is going on within this course.

References:

Woods, Bianca. “Building your own PLN: seeking new insights and ideas? Expand your personal learning network.” T+D, vol. 67, no. 11, Nov. 2013, p. 70+. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A348998538/ITBC?u=uvictoria&sid=ITBC&xid=1010abdf. Accessed 28 Mar. 2021.