Weekly Post and Reflection #5

Another week is upon us, and I cannot believe that we are over a month into this course. Quickly reflecting back, this course has already expanded my digital literacy, as I am able to use a variety of social media platforms that I did not know existed before beginning this course. For example, running and updating this blog each week as well as using tools such as Feedly, and Google Alerts I feel that my digital literacy and global awareness has increased because of this course.

This week my exploration on feedly led to news topics concerning all areas around the world such as the train crash in Germany killing nine, too the cab protest that could happen in Toronto this weekend due to the fight between ubers and cab drivers. By examining news articles of this nature, I am enhancing my global citizenship. This is happening as I am becoming aware of what is happening around me in a local, national and global sense. These articles enhance my learning because it allows me to be able to connect to more people within the world. By reading about more topics other then sports I feel that I am more knowledgably in sense that I can connect with more people within the world. This includes at school when interacting with different people and online as well. Instead of always talking to people who only can talk about sports, feedly has given me the ability to talk and tweet about other topics, which allow me to connect to other people.

In addition too being a better global citizen by having a further knowledge of world events, I am also able to expand my personal learning network, which was emphasized during this week’s session. Through the newly introduced tool twitter, the emphasis of week 5 was on our personal learning network. With my expanded view of news and information the introduction of twitter could not come at a better time as this platform gives me the ability to publish my personal thoughts and opinions on news worldwide. By publishing my thoughts around news topics it allows me to connect to people who either share or disagree with my opinions. Regardless, the ability to follow other people allows me to gain insights and information to add to my own opinions.

Personal Learning Network explained the importance of it throughout the post
Found at: http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/what-is-a-personal-learning-network/

In summary, using twitter and expanding my personal learning network positively contributes to building and increasing my knowledge and global awareness. Due to this, I believe that the tool “Twitter” will be added to my PLE under the educational and personal categories. Twitter belongs in these two categories for myself because the accounts I follow on Twitter both contribute to hobbies and interests that I enjoy in my free time, as well as build knowledge and connections that help with my education and professional life.  

Thanks for reading my blog this week!