What are the benefits of a diverse and inclusive PLN in social media sharing that understands where you are coming from with messaging that impacts the community?
In current social media, in fact, we are easily limited by the algorithm of the application software in a less diverse PLN, because the software will push you some similar information according to the content you watch. But having a diverse and inclusive PLN has many benefits. The diversity of PLN allows us to understand people of different races, different cultures and various things that happen in the world. Inclusive PLN will also broaden our thinking, accept new things and ideas, and not be confined to our own thoughts.
Markiel Simpson is a Canadian activist and politician. He is a person of color and has a lifelong disability. He uses his personal experience to discuss and share his views on certain issues. In the interview, he said that different people have different views on things, which are related to their growth environment and personal experience. Only when we listen to people’s views can we understand the world better. These people may be friends, family, politicians, activists, people of color or people without faith, and so on. Only when our audience is diverse enough can the content he shared be seen by more people.
He also mentioned that in order to make the activities and content he promoted can be seen by specific people, he will specially post on Twitter, because many politicians or news related to politics are concentrated on Twitter. So his voice is more easily noticed. At the same time, he will also use specific hashtags such as “#togetherwerise” and #strongertogether to make his activities easier to remember and increase influence.
Miller, J. (2021, June 1). EDCI-338 MARKIEL SIMPSON. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoDHGaXNNs
Hi Kewen.
I appreciate your understanding of the advantages of PLN, that we should not be tied to the calculation of applications, and that understanding the diversity of social platform content has many benefits in our lives. Just as Markiel shared his personal experience, his goal was to get more people aware of their community’s information, and he used his influence to do so. That’s the charisma of PLN.
Joerica 🙂
Hi Kewen！
I agree with you that the benefits of PLN allow us to understand different cultures and things in the world, and it also broadens our thinking. Just like Markiel said, listening to different people’s ideas can understand different opinions. Without PLN, we would only be confined to those around us. This is the benefit that PLN brings to us.
LiDing
Hi Kewen,
Great blog post! I loved what you had to say in the last paragraph about Mr.Simpson using twitter as his primary form of letting his voice be heard. It made me think that before these kind of platforms and PLN’s so many people would be unable to have their voice be heard. That is certainly one advantage of the advancement in communication technology. We hear from people who we might have never known had we not utilized this technology.
Aidan
Hi Kewen,
I am inspired to learn that we share the same understanding of what Markiel Simpson had to tell us. A PLN achieves inclusivity and diversity by paying attention to, recognising, and respecting student differences, which encompass academic, emotional, physical, cognitive, and social factors (Moore, 2017). Inclusion does not preclude members from spending time outside of the usual network context if they require specific interventions outside of the learning environment.