Blog#7

As Siemens originally conceived through “connectivism”, emerging technologies are having and increasingly will shape education and human cognition.  In terms of digital education through a PLN, there are upsides and downsides. On the one hand, PLNs provide for unprecedented collaboration, perhaps more willingness to share knowledge or to share questions tohelp clarify concepts, a plentitude of platforms through which to access and share knowledge, and it provides space for students to learn at their own pace. PLNs and use of social media platforms, as discussed in our class video, also helps to provide much greater equality for students who come from minority and/or underrepresented backgrounds. Such students may be less willing to express themselves in a traditional class setting, whereas online platforms may ease the pressure while prompting greater room for participation. On the other hand, students miss out on important social skills. Hiding behind a computer while learning may be freeing but it also may not prepare students for the real world (even if the working world seems to be increasingly digital).

Educators can play a pivotal role in creating discourse through PLNs and social media platforms. As the course video highlights, PLNs and social media platforms can be utilised to help bridge diverse communities and build respectful dialogues. Moreover, PLNs help provide what Couros suggests is the value of open teaching, where educators help facilitate “open, transparent, collaborative, and social experiences” (p. 115).Based on student-centred principles, educators may be able to manage better a more collaborative classroom and healthier discourse through PLNs. At the same time, social media poses problems for education because of how easily it can distract students and, even, narrow their perspectives. For examples, students are so accustomed to gathering snippets of news through Tweets that it may be harder for them to gain the kind of patience and critical thinking tools necessary to read much longer articles or actual books. Nonetheless, one could also argue that social media platforms can expand one’s perspectives just as much as it can hinder them but that the real factor is how the educator uses the platform as a facilitator. For example, an educator can get students to follow and look at Twitter feeds/discourses students have never been exposed to before. Furthermore, with “threads” increasingly popular as a source of information on Twitter, Twitter is not as confined in providing educative value as it once was. Underrepresented communities can tell stories from their perspectives rather than rely on other news outlets or organisations to tell it for them, for example. Students can now access threads that are nearly equivalent in length and depth to many news articles. Twitter can also be used to teach students how to distinguish credible and non-credible sources online, a skill increasingly important today. Of course, there are numerous other outlets for further collaboration, such as microblogging or Google Docs.

Maintaining professionalism and compliance with regulations are a critical consideration on social media platforms. It is important for educators here to monitor negative interactions on the platforms, to play a sort of mediating role so that the transparent, authentic, and collaborative environment that PLNs and social media platforms help create are maintained. Indeed, without healthy and respect dialogues first and foremost, there would be little vale in using these platforms. It is also important that educators, as Couros puts it, continuously learn how to “read” social media. Because social media platforms and their slang are constantly evolving, educators need to be alert as to how what students’ communication may reflect beneath the surface. Finally, educators should not focus their PLNs and social media use solely on the course but rather in helping develop communities for their students that can sustain beyond the course itself. Maintaining such a principled focus ensures the class is student-centred rather than instructor-centred and enables students to see the broader purpose of engaging with these platforms while learning.

References

Couros, A. (2010). Developing personal learning networks for open and social learning. In George Velestianos (Ed.). Emerging technologies in distance education. AU Press. p. 115.