Blog Post #8

Explore the video provided and reflect on the themes of a PLN in a professional capacity.
o Which social media platforms are beneficial in education?
o Consider the equality that exists when all have the same platform to engage community dialogues.

Consider as an additional piece, when working with the vulnerable sector, how does social media fit into professionalism and regulations?

If you want to know something on social media, first make sure it’s authentic. Sometimes the information is second-hand. For example, the teacher explains a problem to the students, and then the students explain a problem to the students. The understanding of the listener will be different. Sometimes it will be unclear, or it will be wrong. In the same way, when you study online, it’s important to avoid secondhand information. On the other hand, personal use of social media is difficult to avoid mixing personal feelings and thoughts. However, social media is not entirely healthy or positive. A lot of objective things will lead to arguments among people with different ideas. Not to mention there are some bad comments on social media, such as discrimination. Therefore, the premise of setting up your own personal learning network is to learn to distinguish useful resources and not to be misled by some statements that lead to huge losses.

For education use, each social media platform has their unique benefits and disadvantages. For example, discussion forums are the early communication platform. In the forum, everyone should have their user ID. Different issues can be discussed in the corresponding forums, and anyone can air their personal opinion. However, no threshold is the biggest problem for discussion forums. When everyone can express their opinions, no one can guarantee that what they post will be approved or correct. When you are not knowledgeable in the field, it is difficult to distinguish useful statements. To sum up, the discussion forum is a place for academic exchange, but it is not recommended for people who do not know but want to know. In the same way, Blog is another popular platform to learn. There are two types of blogs, independent blogs and public blogs. First of all, a high degree of liberalization is the symbol of independent blogs. Secondly, it can expand your communication circle. If you are interested in something, you can find like-minded friends through personal blogs. However, independent blogs cost money. Different from private blogs, public blogs are totally free, and open convenient. In addition, the general public blog server is very stable and fast, unlike personal blogs sometimes with such problems. However, public blogs are restricted by rules and layouts. It cannot be highly liberalized, and it cannot be achieved in the way people want it to be. In fact, the most important thing is the restriction of communication circle. Most of the public space is devoted to relatives and friends. The people who are followed by independent personal blogs are almost all like-minded insiders and are not affected by geographical scope.

When everybody joins into the same platform to communicate, equality does exist in some cases. Social media platforms are an open space, it’s free speech in some situations. When people from different regions discuss their common topics of interest on the same social media platform, it fully embodies the charm of social media platforms. Everyone is free to share their opinions as long as they don’t include improper speech. However, this balance is easily upset when someone in authority is present. People are more likely to believe what people in authority say, and may ignore the opinions of ordinary people. Furthermore, equality is almost non-existent when the people on social media platforms are people they know, such as family, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and leaders. Free speech is a major feature and benefit of social media platforms, but as a person, it is difficult to objectively evaluate other people’s opinions and suggestions.

The vulnerable sector is a special group in society. In society, there will be more care for the vulnerable group, such as parking Spaces for the disabled. However, on social media, people should give more respect and equality to the disadvantaged as ordinary people. Therefore, in the daily use of social media platforms, there has never been any link that the disabled access or special groups are forbidden to click. Developers on social media platforms treat vulnerable sectors with the same respect they treat everyone else. Therefore, in the use of social media platforms, the vulnerable sector do not have any discomfort. This fully demonstrates the professionalism and regulations of social media platforms. With the development of society and the improvement of the network environment, social media platforms are just like another global village where people from all over the world gather together. Share yourself in a harmonious place.