Week 3 in Review: Community Development and PLNs

Side note: I am currently writing this blog post from a car on my way back home to Florida after visiting my boyfriend's family in Indiana to see his newborn niece for the first time. If this is not cohesive, that's why. Can you tell that I have the capacity to be a bit of a workaholic?

This week, we learned about some concepts that have to do with learning communities. We discussed, amongst other things, PLNs, latent communities, and context collapse, which were all new terms to me but their meanings seem relatively intuitive; I'm looking forward to exploring them more. I also started my research for the full version of the community norms assignment, which I'm glad I got a head start on early in the week because it is a bit intense! I'm also happy that I chose to do this project on a topic that I could talk about forever, Harry Potter, because I am interacting and observing with communities that I feel very comfortable with. (Fun fact: I worked at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Orlando briefly in 2018. Yes, it was the best job I've ever held in my life.)

This semester seems to be a very interesting one to take this class in considering what is going on on social media right now in regards to the wrongful deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd and the protests that are taking place because of them. Right now if I check any of my social media accounts, within 5 minutes I guarantee you that I will see at least 20 different resources on how to support the black community, educate yourself on what's going on, donate to a social justice organization, etc. If that's not an example of a PLN in action then I don't know what is! I have never seen so many white family and friends post content that shows their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, which is slightly encouraging, but there's so much work left to be done and so much more left to learn. One thing that I have considered doing my Ph.D. research on is social justice, critical thinking, and technology in education. I don't know how I would mesh all of those together into a dissertation, but there has to be a way!




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