Blog post #4: PLN and inclusion

As an undergrad, I have noticed that we, undergrads, take charge in developing our PLN and are constantly evolving because of it, but the definition or concept of PLN and its usefulness is very rarely taught in all faculties and classes, let alone even mentioned. PLN to me is engaging with others that are in your field via online or in-person mediums as a means of growing your learning in a professional setting. However, as an undergrad, my career and learning conducted in my undergrad have not yet merged, thus, my PLN is not strictly revolving around my studies or profession; however, because I have not limited myself to developing a PLN around my profession/studies, my PLN is extremely diverse. For example, I converse with my friends in India and Scotland (I grew up in India and immigrated to Canada), and conversing with them introduces me to the society, culture, and norms in their respective countries and societies. Knowing about other societies allows me to better understand more about Canadian society and identity as well as understanding how different cultures see different cultures. This elevates my learning about the world and societal interactions across the world. For example, I grew up in India during a very conservative era, in a very heavily conservative society and state. During these times, men and women were not allowed to affiliate with each other besides interacting/engaging with each other in a marriage, due to societal norms. Thus, when going to school in India, I never talked to any girls in my grade as I was simply not “allowed”. Moving to Canada in 2011, I learned that western society and culture are quite popular as the opposite sex are allowed to be friends before marriage, and even date, something that was frowned up when in north Indian society. Thus, this taught me to understand the point of view of conservative societies, religions, and the restrictions one must follow under these entities. Furthermore, as a president of a social club, I also interact with people from various different backgrounds, professions, studies, and interests on a weekly manner. Engaging with them always makes me learn a new thing or two, such as just last week, I learned how to make beats on Garageband with my club member. Taking everything into account, the majority of my mental and skill development has occurred due to my PLN.

To learn from your PLN, I strongly believe that it is necessary to have the perfect blend of being the loudest in the room and hearing as well as learning from a variety of voices. I learned at a young age that being dogmatic, static, and narrow-minded regarding your learning is detrimental to your learning – it can limit your understand of various topics as well as inhibit your growth as a learner. However, for learning to take place, one must ask questions, take charge, share, and when needed, challenge what is being taught. Under these aforementioned circumstances, being the loudest helps me achieve the answers that I seek, spread my thoughts, and engage as well as start conversations that haven’t been discussed or started. Furthermore, as an extrovert, it is easy for being the loudest in the room but I always take time to hear and understand various perspectives on a matter to ensure that I have acquired all the understanding that I possibly can.

In my PLN, my and others goal is to not participate in a silo of information sharing. The reason being as growing up as a science student, I have been taught that growth comes from sharing knowledge, information, and results. Thus, on social media, I and my PLN discuss various topics from what is happening in the media such as vaccine development to discrimination in the world. Taking the BLM movement as an example, I remember when everyone on Instagram shared a black screen as a way to support the movement. On the same day, I was watching Kevin Hart’s Instagram live and I remember him saying “I see these black squares being posted on Instagram and I appreciate all the support but it means nothing cause in a week no one will remember this. Sharing the black screen cause your friends did it means nothing if you don’t know the message behind it. Educate yourself, learn why this time right now is so important”. I reflected on these words and realized that I know nothing about black history in western society, thus I took measures to learn about black history and shared the information with my friends in India, as a way to educate them as well. PLN thrives when you learn and learning thrives when you share.

Currently, PLN is diverse in terms of interests. I have friends with different hobbies, interests, studies, and backgrounds. However, because of such diversity in my PLN, I feel that I am not actively trying to grow my PLN and include others which different interests as my PLN. So far into the semester, I have found matter most to be the best way for me to increase inclusion in my PLN. I take these measures by engaging with 2-3 different classmates every week, reading their blogs, sharing my thoughts, and challenging theirs. Furthermore, I also aim to share different personal examples with every blog as a way to expand the thinking of the reader while expanding on my style as a writer.

As students, we are all primarily engaging in discussion forums and zoom calls to learn, expand on what we have learned, and share our learning. I strongly believe that zoom and discussion forums have elevated and embraced inclusion. Before the pandemic, every class was going to the lecture hall, sitting down, listening, taking notes, and repeating this until the midterm, and then repeating it again till the second midterm, and then again till the final. But now, on zoom, in all my classes, students are discussing non-stop about the lecture and sometimes about things similar to what we learned in the lecture, in the zoom chat constantly. Furthermore, students are leaving and receiving substantial amounts of feedback on their discussion forums and posts. These mediums have allowed every student to take charge in their learning, making it centered around themselves, and express their thoughts as well as opinions based on their backgrounds and/or learning, and this is a strong step in the direction of embracing inclusion.

Pandemic has shown me that how important inclusion is; reading numerous posts on the UVic confessions page or uvic subreddit about students feeling lonely made me realize that as humans, we are social beings but as people, we need to feel included. This was one of the primary reasons I made a social club. Thus, with my PLN, my most important learning outcome is an expression of feelings, understanding, opinions, and most importantly, welcoming foreign information, thoughts, and opinions. I state that because if you don’t express what you have learned, then how useful is learning to you? And if you don’t welcome different perspectives and perceptions, then how will you expand your own? I am always reflecting on my PLN in regards to what we believe, what we discuss, and most importantly, what we don’t discuss, know or understand. And it is for these shortcomings that I focus on expanding, including, and welcoming diversity as a way to ensure that my PLN is always growing and developing.

This week’s readings and videos have made me understand what inclusion and diversity mean in terms of PLN and learning. They have made me reflect and analyze my PLN thus, this week’s blog is primarily a reflection on my understanding and assessment of my PLN me expanding on the lecture’s material for the week. Knowing the importance of inclusion and diversity upon PLN will make me interact with more people and continuously thrive to expand my learning.