Diverse PLN Benefits
Having a diverse Personal Learning Network (PLN) can significantly enhance your learning experience and foster both your personal and professional growth. By exposing yourself to a range of perspectives, you’ll gain insights that can enhance your problem-solving abilities and expand your knowledge base. This diverse PLN helps you solve challenges with a broader set of solutions and innovations. Therefore, by connecting with individuals from different backgrounds, it can create valuable relationships that can lead to new opportunities and collaborations. Embracing a diverse PLN can also promote personal development by broadening your outlook and understanding of various cultures and viewpoints. By remaining open-minded and cultivating a diverse PLN, you not only advance your knowledge but also enhance your overall personal and professional lifestyle.
An experience that highlights the benefits of a diverse PLN occurred when attending my visual arts class at UVic while working on sculptures. My process for creating sculptures tends to be quite complex, as I often find myself torn between various approaches that relate with the theme of the assignment. To navigate this challenge, I began seeking inspiration from a diverse range of sources, including sculptures featured on Instagram, Pinterest, and in magazines. This exposure to a variety of artistic styles and ideas provided me with a fresh perspective and helped progress my creativity approaches to be more innovative. Additionally, it helped clarify what materials to use and inspired new ways to present my sculptures. This broader view not only simplified my creative process but also enriched the final outcome of my work.
This TED talk is by Rocío Lorenzo “How diversity makes teams more innovative”
Creating an Inclusive PLN
To create an inclusive Personal Learning Network (PLN) that reflects a range of voices and perspectives, you should start by expanding your network by connecting, researching, and sharing. Connecting with diverse individuals online can shift your approach to content creation and consumption. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer features such as sharing posts and duetting with other creators, which can diversify your feed and introduce you to varying viewpoints. Research plays a crucial role in this process. By exploring a wide array of topics like global issues, sports, or areas of personal interest. You can uncover different perspectives and deepen your understanding. For instance, investigating diverse sources and viewpoints on global events like the Ukraine situation can help broaden your knowledge and inform your contributions to discussions. Sharing is equally important, as platforms like Instagram allow for reposting stories and posts which helps amplify content from diverse voices. By reposting and engaging with content about international issues, you demonstrate your commitment to raising awareness and fostering an informed community. This practice not only highlights your concern but also encourages others to educate themselves and participate in meaningful discussions. Together, connecting, researching, and sharing can help build a PLN that reflects a variety of perspectives and create an inclusive and informed community.
Photo by Persist
What I found to be very heartwarming in this weeks readings is in the introduction of One Without the Other: Stories of Unity Through Diversity and Inclusion. Where the class began the activity of observing the diagrams on topics of inclusion, segregation, exculsion, and integration and would have to label each diagram that would relate to those topics. However, after observing the dots arrangements a student began discussing how she figured the topics didn’t align with the diagrams as she communicated “Well, in my definition of inclusion, there is no other.”. I believe that inclusion couldn’t be defined better as inclusivity is suppoed to be a place where everyone and everything can have a freedom of speech, perspectives, choices, and beliefs and values.
Social Media Dynamics
Having spent nearly a decade on social media, I’ve observed how different social media platforms have developed their own unique cultures shaped by societal trends. For instance, Instagram originally served as a space where people shared images and used editing tools to enhance their photos, creating a fun and personal experience for friends and family. However, I’ve noticed the culture on Instagram has changed significantly over time. Nowadays, there is a noticeable pressure and emphasis on perfectionism, with many users striving to curate an “aesthetic” feed. Additionally, Instagram has evolved beyond just sharing images; it has become a major platform for marketing/selling products, providing news, and helping individuals build large followings. Consequently, many of the photos shared today are increasingly either AI generated or extremely photoshopped making it less authentic.
The unique culture that surrounds social media platforms has significantly influenced how I interact with others in my PLN. There’s often a sense of pressure to post content that I believe will resonate with my followers’ standards, rather than simply sharing genuine thoughts or experiences. This shift towards prioritizing what’s likely to be well-received by others on my media platforms, can sometimes take over my presence on my PLN and alter the authenticity of my interactions and the true intent behind my posts. More recently I’ve started to veer away from following this culture, by ignoring the opinions of others and allowing myself to not feel pressured when posting. Therefore, this helped make it easier to interact with others online and allowed me to be more authentically myself and become more confident in my PLN’s.
Challenges of Inclusivity in Digital Spaces
I have had difficulties making my professional PLN to be more successful as I’ve only created a professional identity of myself a few years ago. An area that I struggle with is bias and echo chambers, as I tend to be close minded to voices and perspectives that align with my own beliefs. Therefore when presenting myself on LinkedIn and Facebook,it has become more challenging trying to connect and join with groups and people on these platforms as I’ve been unknowingly limiting my PLN diversity.
Photo by Scarlett on the website mindyourmind
A solution that supports making my PLN more inclusive, is to change my outlook and be more considerate of making a conscious effort to explore and learn about different viewpoints and topics that are unfamiliar or differ within my own. Additionally, by engaging with content that addresses a varied perspective on professional experiences, global issues, and cultural differences. This can allow for myself to create a more diversified PLN that supports inclusivity while attaining to gain more knowledge and a range of perspectives. For example, I could try and join more Facebook groups and connect with people on LinkedIn that may not share or align with my beliefs, so that I can put myself in a space where I can learn, expand, and most importantly help represent my PLN to be more inclusive. Showcasing that I am knowledgeable not only in my professional area, but also in other areas as well.
