Post 1: PLN’s and Public Communication

Networking using social media can be an incredibly powerful tool in this time of increasingly common tech usage, and as more platforms for such show up on the market; the ability to advertise yourself at your own pace becomes even more personalized. Learning and engagement using mediated platforms can be inconsistent, as there’s an effect of disconnect from posting online versus speaking to someone in person. You can’t necessarily “log out” of a conversation in person, but online it’s much easier to willfully ignore or disengage with conversations you do not want to have. Because of this, it also makes it harder to be motivated to participate. This is something I’ve seen in my own day to day life through online classes. In a traditional school setting, if a professor is asking you a question you feel the immediate need to reply, but here in this online sphere, it’s much easier to pretend that you haven’t seen anything and in general just feel a much lower sense of urgency. This is where having a community space encouraging participation is so important. When someone is left to their own devices, it feels like a much bigger task to try and create dialogue in a professional setting. Having the internet be a place for both recreation and work complicates people’s ability to keep the two separate, so it’s easy to forgo doing actual work in favor of messing around on social media platforms. When everything is all in one place- the mind wanders away if you’re not careful. This is something I’ve certainly had my fair share of struggle with while operating on a largely remote basis the past 8 months. 

However, that doesn’t mean they are not certain rewards from maintaining a professional presence online. One of the greatest benefits is the sense of community. By finding a learning network that you can engage with, and with people who are all at a similar spot professionally as you; this means members of the learning network can then keep each other accountable. This is a notion about motivation that is discussed in the reading, and can best be summarized by the quote, “Your networks also allow you to find appropriate, constant support when the need arises.” This “need” that the authors describe is likely during feelings of low motivation or frustration. Instead of handling this alone and struggling to find the will to continue; there are multiple other people who can encourage and lift eachother up. Another huge benefit from these types of public communications is making connections. By networking you’re making yourself known to people who can potentially forward your career in a positive way, or people you can call upon to vouch for you should the need present itself. People can find themselves with much more opportunities solely based on the fact that they were friendly or charming with many different people, and someone with the same skill set who kept to themselves might find themselves struggling to receive those same opportunities. As well as the fact that being a part of a learning network lends itself to more collaboration, so even if someone isn’t getting direct connections- they are still learning and having dialogues with others that will help them in the long run. Even with the potential risk of not meshing well with those in the online community, trusting or being associated with the wrong people, or of making a mistake that can affect your entire reputation; the overall benefits paint a picture of a worthy investment of time.