Research on Social Media and Learning Communities:
Through researching different media’s in this task, when looking for a learning community, the media platform I gravitated toward was Pinterest. When using this social media site, I can find myself scrolling through posts for hours on a variety of topics that interest me and especially those that focus on interior decorating. This then explains why the learning community I choose was interior and architectural house design. I chose this community as I’ve always had a strong interest when it comes to designing houses. I’m espcially. interested in how to make a house simple and practical, visually appealing, and most importantly homey. I discovered several vibrant learning communities centered around Scandinavian, mid-century modern, heritage, and modern designs in interior decor. I enjoy spending time on Pinterest as it can simply curates a collection of photos that beautifully captured all these styles. Searching for “Scandinavian house style” revealed an array of inspirations for styling kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, patios, front doors, and showcasing designs and layouts to explore and draw inspiration from. Additionally, when searching for “mid-century modern house designs”, Pinterest also provides a section that presents a related searches section. Pinterest can further display an even more in-depth search result on how to create a type of design and the ‘how to’ steps for one to do their own design on interior, exterior, a hoe to renovate a house into a type of style, and how to merge a sense of design to be complimentary to another form of housestyle.
Here are a few designs I found when looking for a learning community:
Photo above by Midcentrymodern on www.midcenturyhome.com
Photo above by Marie Olsson Nylander on residence magazine.se
Building Your Personal Learning Network (PLN):
Social media platforms regularly help me to gain a more widespread personal learning network (PLN) through podcasts on Spotify, Instagram, and Twitter known as X. These three platforms each aid us in obtaining knowledge on a number of topics including sports, politics, science, global phenomenons, fitness and careers. They also cater to share their media through very simplistic and accessible ways to support an inclusive approach to learning such as auditory, reading/writing, and visual.
The past few years I’ve travelled back and forth between living on Vancouver Island during the school year and returning home to. Calgary during the summer months. In order to stay connected to my friends and family durinfg the year, while it has. been a challenge, using social media has made it easier to communicate in real time. To stay informed and connected I frequently rely on Instagram and Snapchat. These platforms offer a dynamic blend of photos, videos, and text for messaging which allows me to share moments and stay engaged with my friends and family. Whether posting stories about my daily activities or responding to theirs, these features help ensure I am part of their day to day and they are a opart of mine while also being connected in a visually engaging way.
Setting Professional Goals and Engaging with the Community: How have you, or do you plan to, identify the right media platforms, set personal/professional goals, and engage with the community? Share your experiences or plans for sharing content and participating in discussions in your PLN.
After reviewing the weekly readings from this week, I resonated with Leveraging Social Media to Build a Digital PLN as it discusses how an individual can plan and identify the right media platforms when it comes to deciding how to set up a personal and professional PLN to reach your goals. This article suggests when creating a professional digital PLN, consider following few steps.
Photo by Brand Dignity
It starts off with what my goal is and how do I believe I can accomplish it with the help of media. My goal within the digital community is to grow my connections across my LinkedIn profile, while also looking for people in my area of career interest in marketing or graphic design,. I feel confident that I can interact with and gain a better understanding of the profession through these many connections. Another option is to consider what you want to get from this PL. For me, I want to learn more on how my skills and knowledge from University will be an asset and how this knowledge can be implemented for future jobs, connecting for advice and where I may connect with someone as a potential mentor for support. To forward my digital PLN, I plan to play a role in searching for resources and seeking for inspiration when it comes to future business that are in my area of interest and field. When I connect on LinkedIn, I am encourgaged at how often this helps me to gain the opportunity to speak to successful graphic designers and marketing agents on what steps are crucial in starting a new career in this area. Through time, I believe this plan will pay off and I will have my digitak PLN to thank my digital relationships.
Protecting Your Information and Ensuring Ethical Behaviour:
To protect my privacy and digital footprint in my PLN, I focus on creating strong passwords, authentication, and reviewing that my privacy settings adhere to protect myself and my personal/professional media from others. Therefore by creating a two-factor authentication where applicable and creating unique passwords, this ensures security against unauthorised computer programmers. By adjusting my privacy settings, this allows myself to feel secure that my posts, messages, personal information is trusted within my own personal connections. To asure my ethical behaviour is protrayed truthful and genuine, I prefer to interact in discussions or posting on Instagram or Twitter (X) with my PLN in respect and integrity.
I also avoid spreading any hateful or misinformation across my platforms as that could impact my ethical behaviour seen online. To avoid a possible misconception on my media I have decided over the past few years to stop stating my opinions, and rather use these media platforms Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as a space to post activities, traveling, and fond memories I want to remember and share. My advice to create security within your PLN’s is to have selective sharing, avoid sharing unnecessary personal details unless it aligns with enhancing your media in a positive way and doesn’t affect on others privacy and rights.
Below is a video on social media’s privacy awareness:
Privacy Concerns and Online Participation:
Since I first ventured onto social media in 2016, I’ve been consistently advised to be vigilant about how to share with other users, selectively share information, and maintain strong security around all my accounts. Hearing stories of impersonation and hacking incidents early on greatly influenced my approach to creating a strong sense of privacy and cautiousnesses when using social media sites. Privacy concerns definately influence how I navigate online communities as I always try to be mindful of the potential data breaches or unauthorized access to myu content. To avoid a possible risk to my media account, I rend to stay clear of illegal streaming sites and newly launched apps opting to only use platforms which prioritize user security with robust measures such as two-factor authentication via phone or email in addition to passwords. This layered approach reassures me of their commitment to privacy and security and that they care how reliable and trustworthy their users content sharing.
By curating what I share and employing strong passwords, along with ensuring all accounts are set to private, I establish a strong perimeter of privacy. This cautious approach positively shapes my willingness to engage on social platforms. Strengthening my digital privacy adds an extra barrier against potential threats to my digital footprint and personal data.
Here is a great video on why and how powerful networking is:
