This week we learned about Personal Learning Networks and Digital Identity in which we watched videos and read articles on these topics.

What does it mean to network using social media?

I feel that I rely heavily on social media the most when it comes to networking and connecting. When people use social media, it is often to share photos/videos/messages about their personal life with their peers. However, once these photos/videos/messages are shared with others, it goes beyond just their circle of people allowing everyone in their network to know/see more about their peers, ultimately creating our digital identities. When we take a step further at looking at our digital identities, we see that our Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s) are designed based on our interests and knowledge. This allows us to create our PLN’s with those who also share the same interest/knowledge, but also shows the rapid growth and need of technology and networking. For example, when Covid-19 first hit, everyone relied on online networking to communicate with the world outside of their own homes. Having these PLN’s allowed for continuous learning as we learned from one another about the things we wanted to learn about. From personal experience, I know I rely heavily on social media to feel connected with those around me, regardless of the face-to-face interactions I get with them. This is because when my friends/family are sharing things, I feel like I can connect with them due to being a part of their network.

How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?

As participants in networked publics, we must be motivated to continue to participate in these networks. So, what is keeping us motivated to network? According to Rajagopal et al. (2011), people network for many reasons including but not limited to searching for connection, advice, and our pure instincts of curiosity. Personally, I find that I am most engaged and stay motivated to participate in these networks due to wanting to make personal connections with others, especially during times such as Covid-19 when making and keeping those connections were extremely difficult. As people crave for human connection, networked publics such as social media makes it easy to want to interact due to the personalized algorithms created to ensure that the content is relatable for the user. I know that during Covid-19 is when I was most active on my networks such as Instagram, TikTok, etc. Therefore, I believe that it would be the case for others as well, to feel connected with others through the online photos/videos/messages that their community was sharing.

What are the risks & rewards of public communications?

I believe that there are always risks and rewards of public communications. I especially see this as a future teacher in UVic’s teacher education program. Our job requires maintaining both the online and physical safety and privacy of our students. For example, having public communication would be great for me in the sense of building an online community for my students and their families to connect with me and one another, as well as keeping everything on one platform that is accessible for sharing assignments, activities, and pictures of the students’ learnings. However, this comes with the risk of breaching their privacy in which families may not all want their children to be posted. For example, even if a family’s own child is in the photo and there are other children in the photo, it would be a breach of privacy for that family to keep the photo.