One good thing about my Personal Learning Network is that it is very diverse. It is diverse because my PLN is composed of professionals, students like me, researchers, and teachers as well. Aside from being diverse, there is also equality in my PLN because no one has the loudest voice in the room. I would not like it if I would have the loudest voice because that means that I am dominating the discussion. On the other hand, I would also not like it if one of my fellow learners in my PLN would have the loudest voice because that means that he/she is taking over the discussion. Since education is supposed to be democratic and inclusive where everyone has their own roles, responsibilities, and peer connections (Five Moore Minutes, 2018a), I wanted my PLN to be democratic and inclusive.
With diverse and inclusive PLN, I was encouraged to participate in silo of information through sharing my thoughts and opinions on topics like economics, education, and digital learning. The diverse group of people in my PLN enabled me to view things from different perspectives. For instance, teachers have different views on education compared to students and so are researchers and other experts in the field. Because everyone in my PLN has different views on a certain topic and no one is pushing them to think alike, it made me interested in the concept of inclusion. In inclusive education, educators do not force their students to think alike. Like many kids who struggled to fit in the archaic system of education that Shelly Moore mentioned in her video titled “Don’t Should on Me: It’s not easy being NOT green” (2018), I also struggled to fit in. Fitting in is not a good thing especially when you are really different from others. I want the inclusivity that I could feel from my PLN and I believe that engaging in my PLN more would help me see inclusivity in action.
The learning outcome of my PLN is to get the learners engaged and to make them lifelong learners. In order to ensure exposure to diversity and inclusion, I will not be picky in choosing my PLN members, for as long as their profiles are not dummy accounts, I will include them in my PLN. Just as Moore and Schnellert (2017) said, the paradigm shift in education is long overdue. This means that if as a student, I can do something to revolutionize my education, I will take the necessary steps to do it. After reading about inclusion and PLN I realized that education should not really look for the “not wavy” ones and fix them. I believe in finding strength and embracing diversity and this philosophy can be turned into practice. To turn it into practice, Moore (2016) gave a very important advice: Focus on the students that are hard to get to. If educators focus on students who find it hard to keep up, there is a huge chance that they will be able to reach all the students.
References
Five Moore Minutes. (2018, October 1). The evolution of inclusion: the past and future of education [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQgXBhPh5Zo&feature=youtu.be
Five Moore Minutes. (2018, November 5). Don’t Should on Me: It’s not easy being NOT green [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeRNhz0nGts&feature=youtu.be
Moore, S., & Schnellert, L. (2017). One without the other: Stories of unity through diversity and inclusion. Portage & Main Press. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/reader.action?docID=4832579&ppg=6
Shelley Moore. (2016, April 4). Transforming Inclusive Education [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtUlU8MjlY&feature=youtu.be
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