EDCI 339/338

Month: March 2025

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Blog Post #4- Open Pedagogy, Open Educational Resources, Global Trends and Creative Commons Licensing

12 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Key Definition:

Terms to look out for while reading:
Open educational resources: teaching and learning resources that are released to the public and allow individuals to access, adapt and redistribute the source with limited or no restrictions.
Open pedagogy: a learning style that utilizes open educational resources to support learning
Pedagogy: the practices and methods of teaching. The focus is on how we teach rather than what we teach
Instructional Scaffolding: allowing students to who are struggling to work with a more advanced student, adult or resource to allow them to reach their learning goals.
Creative commons license: a license created by the author of the work that sets a guideline for how the public may utilize their resources.
Public Domain: category of creative commons licensing in which the resources are unprotected by property law.

What is Open Pedagogy:

The video above describes open pedagogy. It starts by distinguishing two things–open and pedagogy. Open refers to the use of open educational resources whereas pedagogy refers to the practices and methods used to teach. Open pedagogy relies on an instructors ability to accept and incorporate open educational resources as a tool to make learning more accessible and affordable.

Teachers have many avenues they can take when instructing students. Pedagogy–the practices and methods that guide instruction, can be interpreted and applied differently depending on the instructor and their goals. Open pedagogy, also known as open educational practice is complicated and can be defined in numerous different ways. One way to conceptualize open pedagogy is as a system of practices and methods that utilize open educational resources (OER) to reduce the barriers associated with education and make it more affordable and accessible. Open educational resources are free learning materials that anyone is able to adapt, change or redistribute with minimal or no limitations. This can include videos, textbooks, lesson plans and worksheets.

Open pedagogy is composed of three main features:

  1. Open Planning: when creating course materials and curriculum, there is open collaboration before solidifying the content, lessons and teaching strategies. Instructors are able to see what other teachers have done and their reflections and challenges before solidifying the details of their own course. For example, an instructor may take a look at other teacher’s lesson plans for Biology 11 before solidifying the content breakdown of their own course.
  2. Open Products: Products of the course such as the instructor’s lesson plans and the students work can be used for something larger in the global community.
  3. Open Reflection: Actively and openly reflecting on the course and documenting successes and challenges can enlighten future instructors on the possible challenges associated with the resources, lesson plans or the pedagogical approach taken. For example, a teacher may change their strategy for instructing stoichiometry, if they see other teacher’s commentary on the challenges associated with that practice.

How is Open Pedagogy Different than Traditional Methods?

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Each teaching methodology is incredibly different and offers different benefits and challenges for both the instructor and the student. For example, direct instruction is when instructors provide explicit, step-by-step teaching, usually in a lecturing format. This strategy can be beneficial due to how streamline the lessons flow but, can be negative due to low engagement and passive learning. Dissimilarly, inquiry based instruction focuses and supports students ability to explore their problems and questions for themself. This can lead to greater engagement and problem-solving skills, but can result in less structured lessons. As you can see, both strategies listed above, though seemingly different practices, benefits different students depending on their unique needs.

Open pedagogy has unique practices and theories that differ from traditional methods. Below is a few ways that open pedagogy differs from other teaching practices:

4 ways Open Pedagogy differs from Traditional Teaching Methods
1. Allows instructors to build OER alongside their students: although the topic matter may be new to students, asking them to reframe and recreate course material in new ways adds value to OER’s, but allows them to explore the course content.
2. Utilizes participatory or social technologies: Open pedagogy utilizes blogs, wikis that encourage students to engage with individual’s and ideas that span past their own institution.
3. Connected Community: Open pedagogy relies on the interconnectivity of the global community to inform practices and content. This allows more diverse voices to be included in the curriculum, content and assignments found in course.
4. Reflective Practice: Open pedagogy encourages instructors and students to engage in reflective practices openly that inform their own instruction and the instruction of others. This includes using open tools such as blogs for peer feedback and reflection.

How can Open Pedagogy be used to empower students and teachers?

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Open pedagogy aims to encourage collaboration and sharing in teacher-teacher and student-teacher dynamics. As a result, Open pedagogy can empower students and instructors alike. Students have been found to be motivated by the opportunity to create artifacts that can be utilized by other individuals. University students who engaged in courses that followed open pedagogical practices, found that they felt empowered by their ability to contribute positively to a body of knowledge rather than just reading it.

The Role and Impact of Open Educational Resources:

You have likely come accross open educational resources (OER) more often than you may think. Open educational resources are freely accessible educational resources that can be used, shared or changed. This includes many of the textbooks, videos and quizzes you find on the internet. A reason that OER are so unique is that they are licensed in a fashion that allows and encourages teachers and other professionals to make changes that align with the needs and goals of their students.

The 5 R’s of Open Educational Resources

  1. Retain: are able to keep and continue to use them as long as you need to.
  2. Reuse: can utilize the resources for yourself
  3. Revise: instructors can adapt, modify, or translate work
  4. Remix: can combine with other resources to make new work
  5. Redistribute: share work with other instructors and users.
Photo by Michal Parzuchowski on
Unsplash

As a student I readily utilize OER‘s to support and reinforce my own educational pursuits. I utilize open access journal articles to conduct research, write papers or to supplement the material covered in class. I also utilize online tutorials as I navigate technologies that I had not used previously. For example, when I took statistics, we were asked to use R, a coding platform to complete analyses and I relied on the tutorials found online to teach myself how to code effectively. Those are just a few examples of how I have used OER, but students can also use OER’s such as videos, open textbooks or open learning modules. All of these are advantageous as they reduce barriers such as the cost to make resources more available. Other advantages include increased flexability due to being able to utilize the online sources anywhere and the adaptability of being able to choose and apply sources sparingly based on what student’s need.

Open educational resources are a great addition to an instructor’s practice as they can reduce barriers to education for their students.

Below are a few advantages of open educational resources for teachers:

  1. Reduces the costs: OER’s allow instructors to utilize high quality resources for their classrooms without needing to spend a large amount of money. For example, they may be able to remove textbook usage and supplement their learning with open educational resources online.
  2. Improve teaching: allows teachers to improve and continually incorporate relevant material and findings as they come. For example, they can use resources that include local landmarks into their word problems.
  3. Streamlines curriculum: open online resources can be used to supplement their own teaching and allows teachers to offer different inclusive materials such as podcasts, books or pamphlets when needed or if they are tackling complex topics. For example, teachers can utilize pre-made lesson plans, videos or podcasts to teach cultural topics such as Lunar New Year or Ramadan, if those cultural celebrations are not within their lived experience.

How does open educational resources contribute to making education more equitable?

Open educational resources can be used efficaciously to reduce the barriers to education to make it more accessible and inclusive for students. Below are just a few ways that OER can make education more accessible to students all over the globe:

How does OER make education accessible?
1. Reduces Cost: Open educational resources are free to access and use reducing the financial strain for students who experience financial
constraints.
2. No pre-requisites: open educational resources are freely available to anyone– meaning that individuals do not need certain GPA’s or course requirements to utilize the materials. For example, to read an article on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, I do not need to have previously taken an education course.
3. Can access anywhere: the majority of OER’s are accessible on the internet. This increases accessibility for individuals living in rural regions or areas that do not have access to learning centre’s such as universities.
4. Scaffold Learning: OER can scaffold students learning by adapting the resource to support the students needs. Teachers can adapt OER to meet the level of their student. For example, for a student with apraxia, a teacher might include the words they are to fill in with a highlighter so the student can trace the answer and recieve writing practice.

Creative Common’s Licensing:

The video above is about Creative Commons Licenses. Creative commons licensing lets you decide how you want your work to be used by the general public. They are used to make permissions explicit, straight forward and ethical.

Creative common’s licensing is a license created by the copyright owner that allows the public to utilize their work within the guidelines that they have set for their resources. This can range from public domain–meaning the public can utilize the resource in any fashion they would like, to simply copying and distributing at verbatim the resource.

There are 6 types of Creative Commons Licensing

  1. Attribution (BY): able to share, distribute, remix and utilize these resources as you would like, as long as you provide appropriate credit
  2. Attribution- ShareAlike (CC BY-SA): can use, distribute and adapt resources aslong as all usages and adaptations give proper credit.
  3. Attribution- NonCommercial (CC BY-NC): Can use, distribute and adapt resources as long as proper credit is given to the creator and it is for noncommercial reasons.
  4. Attribution- NonCommercial- ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): can use, distribute and adapt resources as long as proper credit is given to the creator, they are not used for commercial reasons and all adaptations must follow the same terms.
  5. Attribution- No Derivatives (CC BY-ND): Individuals are only able to copy and distribute the material in verbatim as long as credit is given to the creator.
  6. Attribution- NonCommercial- No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND): Can use copy and distribute the material verbatim as long as it is used for commercial reasons and credit is given to the creator.

Why is it important to know these?

Photo by Martem Bjork on Unsplash

When utilizing open educational resources it is important to have a deep understanding about creative commons licensing and how that influences your rights regarding how you can utilize the work. Creative commons is important because it protects people’s work and intellectual property. For example, if I create a lesson plan to inform students on the history of comic books, and I don’t want people to be able to commercialize the lesson plan, I can utilize creative commons licensing to protect my work and ensure it is used effectively. In that example, I may pursue an Attribution- NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) License as it would allow the public to adapt, distribute and share my lesson plan, but not sell it.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Open pedagogy is a learning style that utilizes open educational resources to support learning.
  2. Open educational resources can be used to reduce barriers such as cost for education.
  3. Creative commons licensing is a form of copyright that allows individual’s to choose how their work can be used by the general public.
Photo by Dario Bronnimann

Peer Response Module #3

11 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Peer Response #1- Elena M

Blog Post #3

Great work this module Elena! I really enjoyed your blog post! Before reading your post this module, I was not aware of Katie Novak’s book titled ‘UDL Now’. I took a quick look online at the book and it seems like a very in-depth resource for applying UDL in the classroom. Being that I am currently completing a practicum in an elementary school, I believe that this book could be an effective resource to turn too as I find ways to add equity and inclusion.

I think you did a great job discussing accessibility in classroom settings. You highlighted some great approaches to creating equitable access to digital resources such as close captioning, text to speech, recorded lectures and customizing settings. I think expanding past that, some other ways we can do this is to offer alternative options for engagement and using affordable or accessible resources. Accessibility can be improved by offering students multiple means of engagement such as course materials in the format of PDF’s, word documents and google docs. Another way to increase accessibility is to use affordable platforms or resources offered through the institution. Many school districts and universities offer accounts for platforms such as Office 365 or Adobe.

Peer Response #2- MY

Blog Post 3

Hi My! Great work on your blog post for Module 3. I think you made a really great point regarding the importance of diversity when creating instructional methods. Offering students the ability to engage with the material in numerous ways and showcasing their learning through varying means of assessment gives all students the ability to learn and accurately demonstrate their learning. You outlined some efficacious ways to foster inclusion in face to face classrooms such as visual aids and assistive technologies. I think some other ways to promote equity in face-to-face classrooms could be providing students opportunities for feedback and reflection. This could be by doing Kahoots, Google forms or IClicker so the students can recieve immediate feedback. Another, it to create personal reflection opportunities such as journaling so they can assess their own understandings.

Ethics is a hugely essential component when interacting and learning in online environments. I think you outlined a few great ways that universities can support ethical behavior such as implementing data protection policies, but I think that individuals can maintain ethics on their own accord. Individuals should be mindful to respect other people’s data ownership, be kind and respectful to others, maintain their digital footprint and ensure they are citing sources accurately to act ethically when online.

Fantastic job this module! I look forward to reading your blog posts in the future!

Peer Response #3- Ishan Jassal

Blog #3

Hello Ishan, awesome job on your blog post! I really enjoyed reading it. As a student who utilizes Brightspace everyday, I am inclined to agree with you that there are ways that it can be improved to better align with UDL principles. For example, I find it frustrating that I am unable to access the website when I do not have my phone due to needing the Duo Mobile App. I think this can make it inaccessible for lots of students who are relying on public computers to use Brightspace as they may not have access to their Duo Mobile to sign in.

I think you did an amazing job outlining the importance of accessibility in online course’s and settings. I believe that you outlined some effective ways to enhance accessibility in online spaces such as user friendly design, captioning, accommodation tools and immersive reading. Expanding past that, when talking inclusivity and accessibility I think it is essential to discuss the digital divide. The digital divide is the gap that lies between people who have access to reliable internet and technology and those who do not. Some ways we can work to reduce the digital divide is to use affordable or institution offered platforms and create a list of suggestions for places with high speed internet.

Great work this week!

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Peer Response Module #2

11 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Peer Response #1- Gaia Iturralde

Blog Post #2

Hello Gaia! I appreciated reading your post this module on networked pedagogy, learning theories and instructor’s roles. I greatly appreciate how fluid and concise the post is to read! It is easy to pick out the key details, making it accessible to lots of readers.

I think you did a great job explaining networked pedagogy. It is truly amazing how efficaciously networked pedagogy can reduce barriers associated with time and location. So many learners have barriers that block their ability to learn such as familial obligation, work, geographical location and time constraints.

It is essential to recognize the pivotal role that instructors play in the success of their learners. Similar to you, I believe that instructors need to be easy to reach, helpful and supportive. Beyond that, I think they need to be clear, patient and technologically skilled. Students are relying on their teacher’s ability to be patient and helpful as they navigate potentially new waters when completing online coursework. When asked to think of characteristics that make a great instructor, that leads me to think of different traits that instructors should not have as they teach online. I think a poor online teacher is someone who is unorganized and has an unstructured course. A lot of online learning relies on the instructor’s ability to make a course legible and easy to navigate without the need for constant reassurance or clarification.

Great work this week! I look forward to reading your posts in the future!

Peer Response #2- Justin Scott

Blog Post #2:

Hello Justin! I have enjoyed reading your unique perspective in your blog post this week! Each person has a distinct preference for the teaching practices and pedagogy used in their schooling. I agree with you, and also find that my preference changes depending on the type of coursework I am engaging in. When the course is theoretical, I find that I prefer the opportunity to explore and learn on my own. Dissimilarly, when the course is scientific, math based, or structured, I prefer a direct lecture style where the professor is lecturing the material at us. These differences in preference highlight how important it is that instructors offer numerous modes of instruction and engagement to ensure all students have the opportunity to engage with the material in a fashion that aligns with them.

I appreciate your thorough explanation of the learning theories. In specific, your description of the constructivist approach stood out to me. Being that the constructivist approach places emphasis on active learning, I believe it can be applied beautifully to online courses. Effective online courses offer flexability in learning and assessment, aligning well with principles of constructivism. I think some ways to apply constructivism in the classroom is to utilize discussion forums and alternative assessment options such as podcasts or videos.

Great work this week!

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Module #3- Peer Response Posts:

9 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Peer Response #1- Rachel Powell

Blog Post #3

Hello Rachel! I read your post this week and enjoyed reading it! I really liked the use of definitions table at the start of your blog as it made the site easy to follow! I liked the way you highlighted some strategies to protect personal information and privacy when in digital spaces. Extending past reading terms and conditions, being selective and accepting cookies I believe there are a fewer other ways to protect our privacy. I also think that it is important to make use of VPN’s when completing work for school or your career. Another thing is too download an antivirus that can prevent and remove your virus your device.

I like the way you highlighted the importance of inclusivity in education and PLN’s in your post this week. You made great points as to how inclusivity can be fostered through UDL. UDL can be incredibly useful when trying to make an inclusive learning environment for individuals with differing abilities, due to the focus on increased engagement in engagement, representation and expression. Beyond just UDL, I think that there are other things that can support inclusivity in educational settings. I think that it is important to seek out the voices of diverse groups of individuals to recieve their understanding and viewpoint. Another way to support a diverse learning environment is to respectfully communicate with other communities to encourage individuals to share their ideas with others.

I think you gave some great ways to support diversity within learning environments, namely– interacting with resources and choosing to use inclusive features, but I also think that creating and promoting culturally sensitive materials, diversity training and applying materials for different learning styles can also aid to support inclusivity.

Peer Response #2- Justin

Blog Post #3:

https://justinscott.opened.ca/category/edci338/

(This post would not let me embed it into the blog)

Hi Justin! I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I really like the way that you explained diversity within digital learning. You did a good job covering the challenges to diversity such as language barriers and limited representation. I also feel that social media platforms such as Instagram, Reddit and TikTok have been great resources as I try to learn information and build a PLN. I think you made a great point as to how social media can be used in PLN’s to supports community building within groups of people. I think that there are a lot of other benefits to social media such as increased motivation and continuous learning. Those ideas left me to wonder about possible challenges to social media in PLN’s? I think that some possible challenges could be confirmation bias, echo chambers, and misinformation. Due to PLN’s access to online resources, it is possible that misinformation could be spread in PLN’s, especially when on social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram.

Great job this week! I look forward to reading more in the future.

Peer Response #3- Justine Dhillon

https://justinedhillon.opened.ca/category/338-blog-post-3/ (This post would not let me embed it into the blog)

Hello Justine! I enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I really like the way that you described the importance of privacy. Maintaining privacy through two-factor authorization, anti-viruses, and privacy settings is essential to maintaining individuals’ safety when online. Similar to you, I found that as I have gotten older and began to build a PLN, I have been able to use social media in so many ways I had never imagined. I never thought I would use Reddit and TikTok as ways to connect with other people in my field and learn information. Dissimilarly, growing up, I thought it was a form of entertainment. I agree entirely with your sentiment that diversity needs to be a priority in all educational contexts. I think some possible ways to promote diversity are to attend webinars and conferences that discuss diversity, and to join and share online communities and posts that showcase minority voices and perspectives.

Thank you for your contributions to the EDCI 338 community this week!

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Module #2- Peer Response Posts:

9 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Peer Response #1- Nando Covelli

Module 2 Blog

Hi Nando, I really enjoyed reading your post this week! In specific, I think you did a spectacular job outlining the differences between professional and personal identities. I think you made an awesome point regarding how difficult it is to seperate these two, especially in a world more digitalized by the day.

I found it interesting the way that you explained how someone should seperate an individuals personal and professional identity through the Visitor and Resident Map. You compared the Visitor and Resident mode as a strategy to seperate personal and professional identities by utilizing both in both settings. Although I think that is a good point and a simple way to understand the influence our actions can have, I think it may miss the complexity needed to truly increase the seperation between our personal and professional digital identities. I think a better strategy could be understanding the power that lies in the content of a post and the influence that that has on your digital identity. Individuals engage as residents more freely than they believe–just because they are not posting images of themself, it does not mean they are not interacting with others. Many social media platforms have an interpersonal component that may not be visible instantly. For example, even if you do not post regularly on Instagram, commenting on your friends post’s, liking posts and sharing them with friends demonstrates an interpersonal component.

As a result, I think two effective strategies to create a seperation between our personal and professional digital identity that can go alongside the Resident and Visitor map, is to be mindful of what you post, and protect your privacy. To be mindful of your posts, it is important to be critical and think of how your post can be cultural sensitive and respectful to ensure that others are clear on the intention behind what you say. I think some other ways to ensure your accounts are seperated is by being cognoscente of your privacy settings. By ensuring that your privacy settings are tight, such as by making a personal Instagram account exclusive to the friends you approve of, it increases the likelihood that you can maintain a seperation between your personal and proffessional accounts

I enjoyed reading your post this week! I look forward to seeing your perspective of the course material in the future!

Peer Response #2- Andrea Pizot

Blog#2

Hello Andrea! I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! In specific, I really liked the way that you highlighted the differences between professional and personal digital identities and how that can look in a person’s day to day life. As you stated, many individuals utilize social media to share big moments in their life, whether that be a scholarship on their professional LinkedIn, or a trip to Vegas on their personal Instagram. I think you highlighted some efficacious ways to create a seperation between your professional and personal identity such as changing and maintaining privacy, but I think another way is to be mindful of what you post. By being cognoscente to be culturally sensitive and ethical, it reduces the risk that your posts can be taken out of context. Even with the strongest privacy settings, we cannot stop other users ability to screen record and share the intimate moments posted on our private pages with the world.

Additionally, I appreciated your comments on David White’s Visitor and Resident map. As we can see through your personal examples, everyone utilizes social media in such unique ways, especially when comparing personal and professional/academic usage. It was mentioned that as we enter a workforce, our usages of certain platforms such as LinkedIn may increase to reflect our new responsibilities. With that being said, I wonder how other stages in life might influence our presence online. For example, I believe that if an individual enters a stage where they start a family, they may become more of a resident on social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook as they share the changes in their life and the milestones of their little ones.

Thank you for your post this week! I look forward to reading more in the future!

Blog Post #4: Personal Learning Networks, Social Media Dynamics and Network Development for Digitalized Learning

9 March 2025 / / 0 Comments

Key Terms

Definitions to look for in the blog post:
Personalized Learning Network (PLN): a group of individuals who connect and work together to share resources and increase understandings associated with a topic
Professional PLN: a PLN that supports academic and professional endeavors
Personal PLN: a PLN that supports personal curiosity.
Confirmation Bias: to search solely for information that aligns with previous beliefs, understandings and knowledge.
Social Media: form of mass media interactions taking place on the internet
Reciprocity: the mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, beliefs and behaviors between two or more people.
Social Media Dynamics: the patterns and behaviors that emmerge on social networking platforms as users, content and algorithms interact
Extrinsic Motivation: the driver of behavior that is influenced by the prospect of external rewards such as money or praise.
Reinforced: the introduction of positive stimuli after a behavior resulting in the increase of that behavior transpiring

What Are Personalized Learning Networks (PLN) And Why Are They Important?

Personalized Learning Network

This video describes PLN as the group of people or organizations that you work with to further your understanding and learn from their ideas, resources and references. A PLN is not just online, but online is what allows international collaboration. Marc Lalande sees a PLN as personal because YOU CHOOSE who is apart of it, who is in it or if you want to share.

Learning can transpire in numerous settings, whether that be solitary, in a classroom, online or with a group of peers. With a world becoming more digitalized, information and opportunities to learn are changing by the minute, hour and day. A personalized learning network (PLN) is network of individuals that connect to increase knowledge and growth within a subject matter in both face-to-face and digital contexts. PLN’s are personalized as they allow the individual to choose who they interact with, what information interests them, where they go to find this information and when they use the network or platforms.

Many PLN’s share and discuss through social media platform’s allowing individuals from accross the world with different lived experiences and viewpoints to incorporate and share their understandings. These networks also support connections and collaboration with experts and peers within the field and access to relevant resources to support growth. But, PLN’s are complex, multi-faceted and able to support professional, personal and academic growth.

Types of PLN’s:

  1. Proffessional/ Academic Personalized Learning Network: a knowledge based community that supports individual’s learning in information that aids them in their career or educational aspirations. For example, if I work as an elementary teacher, I may be in a reddit group on teaching long division skills or in The Educators PLN on Ning.
  2. Personal Personalized Learning Networks: An information sharing community that aligns and informs your learning and growth in a field of information that aligns with your personal interests. For example, as a proud new parent to a betta fish named Spork, I am apart of r/bettafishcare, a subreddit on betta fish maintenance to increase my own knowledge regarding how to best take care of my fish.
  3. Combined Personalized Learning Networks: Sometimes our PLN’s can meet the needs of both our professional and personal interests. For example a teacher may be apart of a PLN about emotional intelligence to better understand the influence that emotionality has on their students performance, but use those same resources to find strategies to support their own mental and emotional health

How does PLN support learning and growth?

Photo Betsy Butler on Teaching Channel

As a university student, my personalized learning network has been fostered to improve my academic goals and aspirations. I am a psychology student with an interest in educational psychology and child development, thus my PLN has been developed to deepen my understanding of both topics. My PLN is supported by face-to-face connections, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and APA PsycInfo. Face-to-face connections allow me to develop a deeper understanding of coursework and share information with peers. Social media platforms such as Instagram or TikTok allow me to understand challenges and trends within the field better and academic sources such as APA PsycInfo informs me of the literary findings that are influencing the field.

Those are just a few ways that my personalized learning network has influenced my own learning. Everyone will recieve different benefits from their own PLN, below are a list of some other ways that a PLN has supported my own learning and how it could benefit yours:

5 WAYS A PLN CAN SUPPORT YOUR LEARNING:
Flexability: You do not always have to be online, a PLN allows members to use and interact with the information as they would like or have time too. This ensures information can still be accessible for individuals who have familial obligations or time constraints that may influence their ability to be present often.
Continuous Learning: due to the recipricol nature of PLN’s, there is always an opportunity to interact with other users and learn something new. Individual’s are able to stay up to date on changing trends, new findings and best practices within the field.
Exposure to New Viewpoints: due to the interconnectivity that comes with digital resources, individuals are able to learn and apply culturally sensitive and variable knowledge to their understandings of information.
Opportunities for Collaboration: PLN’s allow you too learn alongside professionals within the field and recieve constructive feedback regarding performance. This also allows individuals to exchange ideas and work productively towards new research and understandings.
Sharing Resources: Recieve access or resources that would not be available or found otherwise. Individuals are able to come accross and find more information together than one individual is able to on their own.

How can a PLN contribute to academic and personal goals?

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Personalized learning networks aim to connect people, information and digital resources through networks. As a result, a well organized and developed PLN can efficaciously support individuals as they pursue their academic and personal goals. Academic goals may be associated with future career endeavors, research, or obtainment of information whereas personal goals may be associated with performance and new information. For example an academic goal of mine may be to complete a research paper regarding Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, whereas a personal goal may be to improve public speaking skills before Toast Masters next year.

Each goal, whether it be academic or personal, will be supported uniquely by a PLN. There is no exact science as to how your personalized learning network can support your development. Below are just a few ways that both academic and personal goals can be supported by a PLN:

Support Academic Goals:
1. Access to diverse learning resources: connections to articles, research papers, webinars, podcasts and educational forums
2. Academic support: allows students to seek guidance when facing challenges in comprehending coursework. Developing study groups for finals, or finding online things such as crash course or Khan Academy to increase their comprehension.
3. Collaboration: allows you to work with individuals of diverse viewpoints and academic experience. Collborating through conferences, seminars, webinars and LinkedIn allow you to connect with other professors, researchers or institutes to further your understanding and academic endeavors. For example, many science fields and lab groups use Slack to communicate with one another.
Support Personal Goals:
1. Self-Paced: As an individual who is juggling practicums, school, work and familial obligations, the ability to pursue my interests and personal goals in a timely manner is especially important. Being able to access resources and a PLN when it makes sense for me, supports my ability to reach my goals as I am able to incorporate it into my daily life. For example, if I am working all day, I may not have time until after dinner to work towards my goal, and due to the flexability of a PLN, I am able to.
2. Collaboration: The increased collaboration with other experts and individuals in the field, allows you to learn more information than you could on your own and recieve feedback to help you work towards your goals. For example, I may post a speech in my free time, and get feedback on the timing, tone and intonation that I use from my peers to improve on my skills.
3. Reduces Bias: If I am looking for information and resources on my own to reach my goals, I may find myself lost in confirmation bias–looking for information that solidifies my previous beliefs and ideas. By recieving input and aid from others, I am better able to create a holistic understanding of the topic at hand to work towards my goal.

Long-Term Networked Development

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A personalized learning network is a useful tool to expand knowledge and understanding in a topic of interest. Despite its efficacy, building a personalized learning network (PLN) is not a one-time effort. Users constantly need to put in time and bidirectional efforts to maintain and develop a strong PLN. Growing your PLN is a slow process, because it takes time to meet people and develop meaningful, trusting relationships with other members within the field of study. A key factor to keep in mind when considering how to develop your PLN is reciprocity. Reciprocity is the process of exchanging things, ideas or behaviors with others for mutual benefit. Within your PLN, reciprocity looks like asking questions and reaching out for feedback, but also offering suggestions, feedback and answers to other people’s questions. I like to think of a PLN as a garden–it requires constant planting, weeding and watering to become productive, but that effort results in beautiful flowers or food we can use. A PLN works under the same premise, the more we contribute, create content and answer other people’s questions, the more support, knowledge and resources we receive back.

It takes a long time to learn the proper skills and practices to maintain and strengthen your PLN. Every person’s expectations and needs from their PLN are different, resulting in different ways to foster their network.

Below are a few different strategies for maintaining and improving your personalized learning network over time:

  1. Active and Regular Participation: it is important to regularly contribute to your PLN by asking questions, sharing insights, resources and commenting on other people’s posts. The bidirectional flow of information, that being from you to others and from others to you, is essential in developing a successful PLN. This reciprocity is essential as it allows the PLN to be mutually beneficial and support collaboration and interconnectivity between members.
  2. Stay Informed on Trends: to remain up-to-date on the changes in research, industry and trends of your network, it is important to stay up to date and continuously look for new released information in your field. This is important as it ensures your practices, knowledge and skills align with the present ideas within the field. For example, if I am a therapist and have a PLN associated with therapeutic practices, it is important to seek and look for new strategies of motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy as they come out, instead of maintaining old practices.
    • some ways to do this:
      • attend conferences or webinars regularly
      • monitor industry publications and news sources
  3. Authentic Connections: interact with others under the premise of maintaining respect, trust and privacy. To do this, try to be genuine and transparent with your intentions. By doing this, you are fostering close, meaningful relationships within your PLN and supporting a collaborative work environment.
  4. Promote Collaboration: by maintaining authentic connection and actively contributing to the PLN by offering resources, suggestions, knowledge and support, the network can be strengthened through social connectivity resulting in more peer collaboration.
  5. Take Advantage of Technology: Utilize the access we have to technology to broaden your PLN and maintain connections with others. Some ways to do this are to reach out over email or LinkedIn to people in your field, share your email when you meet likeminded people at a conference, or look on YouTube, X or Facebook to find other individuals within your PLN. .

Social Media Dynamics for PLNs

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Social media is a huge contributor to the success of personalized learning networks. Social media supports peer collaboration, diverse viewpoints and resource sharing through its ability to connect individuals from across the globe. Social media dynamics are the patterns and behaviors that emmerge on social networking platforms as users communicate online. These social media dynamics help users like us make the most out of each platform’s features.

Different social media platforms allow you to contribute differently. Some may allow for additional peer engagement, others allow likes and comments and some allow for networking. When creating a PLN, it is important to recognize the different benefits of each platform and create a community on platforms that offer engagement opportunities that align with your needs. For example, if I am trying to create a PLN related to betta fish caretaking, I may choose to use a social media platform that includes discussion opportunities and resource sharing such as Reddit so that I am able to recieve resources and start discussions to ask questions as needed. Below is a table of different types of social media platforms and what types of dynamics are fostered:

Social Media Platforms
X: Quick updates, discussion and proffessional and personal networking
LinkedIn: professional network, sharing resources, sharing industry insights
Reddit: community-based learning, resource sharing
Instagram: visual and short form content, professional networking
Facebook: group discussions, resource sharing
TikTok: visual and short form content, personal networking
YouTube: visual and short form content
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There are two key features to social media dynamics— engagement leads to visibility and real-time connections. Real-time connections with individuals online fosters global connectivity through the sharing of ideas, resources and information cross-culturally. Engagement in the form of likes, comments and shares leads to individuals’ resources and ideas being shared with more people. For example, if I were to share a post on Facebook about the importance of vaccines in the reduction of illness, my friends, who may have not seen the post otherwise, are now more likely to have access to the information.

Why do Likes, Comments and Shares Amplify the Spread of Information?

  1. Extrinsic Motivation: recieving shares, likes and comments results in the spread of information because it taps into people’s motivation to share information. By receiving likes and shares, it externally reinforces their behavior of creating a post, and makes it more likely that they will create, share and engage with content in the future.
  2. Ripple Effect: if individuals repost and share other people’s posts and information, then the post itself has the possibility of being seen by more people. If an individual reposts their friends post about the importance of eating fibre, then not only does the viewers and followers of the initial person’s post see it, but there is the possability that the followers and users that engage with the second person, see it aswell.

Impact of Social Media on Learning, Academics and Professional Environments.

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Social media is growing in popularity, with over 5.20 billion users, making up 64% of the world population. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Quora, Reddit, X and LinkedIn leave lasting impacts on individuals’ academic and professional success. Social media can be used to aid individuals as they pursue educational and professional pursuits.

Social media and personal learning

I have used social media numerous times in my life to further my learning. I have used it in my personal life as a quick resource to find tutorials or suggestions, collaborate with others or to expand my viewpoint associated with topics. For example, my car’s brake light went out last weekend, and instead of paying to get it fixed, I utilized social media, namely YouTube and Reddit, to find a tutorial and suggestions for how to make the swap. Without access to these resources on social media, I likely would not have been able to change the light bulb. That is just one example of how social media can be used to learn new skills.

Social media and proffessional learning

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Similarly, social media platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube and Stack can be used to support professional and academic endeavors. Social media platforms allow people to share information, resources, communicate and network with one another, allowing professionals to cooperate towards common goals. Social media has created more diverse professional networks and allowed for more collaboration. For example, in my practicum in an inclusive education classroom, I have utilized social media to further my understanding of the science of reading and phonics. I have personally used Reddit (namely the subreddit, r/scienceofreading), YouTube videos and podcasts such as Sold a Story, to further my understanding of phonics and develop new strategies to teach reading and literacy skills.

How to use social media to enhance learning, career development and engagement?

The video above discusses how social media is a tool that can be used to connect and further individuals learning and careers. Social media is a huge part of academic life, but they have emphasized the importance of using it to your own benefits. The authors highlight the Three C’s of social media–connection, collaboration and communication. Connection allows people to connect with their communities, build a network, share their work and discover funding . For example, thy may use Google Scholar, ResearchGate and LinkedIn and X. Collaboration is the oppprtunity to collaborate with others accross modules, work, programs and locations. This directly supports the development of a PLN. Lastly, communication is the heart of social media and can be used to connect and learn from individuals accross the world.

There are many ways to monopolize social media to aid your learning in professional environments. Below are a few ways that individuals can use social media to support learning and engagement in professional and personal environments:

Enhance Personal Learning
1. Real world application: social media incorporates real world events and applications into the learning process. Learning from social media incorporates the real-world problems and issues that transpire from the theoretical constraints into the learning process. For example, learning about discrimination from social media gives a better understanding of the implications and influences than a definition given in a textbook.
2. Reinforce Learning Behaviors: social media offers immediate feedback to learners. This form of engagement, reinforces individuals’ innate curiosity as they are able to receive answers or suggestions immediately.
3. Collaboration: social media allows students to engage in learning with one another. This allows students to brainstorm and discuss topics together, receive real-time feedback regarding their performance and share resources and knowledge across the world. Additionally, social media offers the ability to share documents on Microsoft or Google Docs.
4. Improved Literacy, Communication and Reading Skills: reading and interacting with posts and comments on social media provides plenty of information online, and opportunities to practice literacy skills. This exposure to online resources such as blog posts, articles helps them develop stronger reading and writing skills.
Enhance Career Development:
5. Access to opportunities: social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and other platforms allow individuals to find new job opportunities, and research companies and job openings. Additionally, social media also allows individuals to research potential jobs that they would not be aware of otherwise.
6. Collaborations: individuals can utilize social media platforms such as Slack or X to collaborate and work alongside individuals within their field. This results in the sharing of ideas, and allows individuals to recieve feedback on their own work.
7. Proffessional Identity: social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and X, allow individuals to create a curated digital identity or brand that aligns with their work and career goals.

Key Takeaways:

  1. A personalized learning network can support both personal and professional development through resource sharing, exposure to viewpoints and collaboration.
  2. By actively participating, staying informed on trends and by building authentic connections we can create strong, long-term personalized learning networks
  3. Social media can positively enhance career development and personalized learning.

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